All the punctuation
You learn to choose every mark in a sentence and put it in the right place.
How to do the test
- Read the sentence aloud.
- Decide how it ends: it tells, asks or exclaims.
- Put commas in a list and after an opener.
- Put inverted commas around spoken words, with the mark inside them.
A worked example
Put in all the punctuation. When the bell rang the children lined up
- Read it aloud: you pause after rang.
- The sentence tells us something, so it ends with a full stop.
- The opener is When the bell rang, so a comma follows it.
More examples
Put in all the punctuation. What a lovely surprise
- No other mark is needed in this sentence.
- It starts with What and shows strong feeling, so it ends with an exclamation mark.
Put in all the punctuation. I am hungry said Mia
- The sentence ends with a full stop.
- The speaker comes after the spoken words, so a comma goes inside the inverted commas.
Try it yourself
Can you swim
Gran asked Would you like some tea
Watch out
You put the end mark after the closing inverted commas, as in “Can we go”?
The mark that belongs to the spoken words goes inside the inverted commas: “Can we go?”
You put a comma before and in a list of three.
In a list, the comma goes between the items, but not before and.
Tips
- Read the sentence aloud and listen for where your voice stops or rises.
Why it works
When you write, nobody tells you which mark is missing. You have to hear it: a pause for a comma, a question at the end, someone speaking. Reading the sentence aloud tells you where the marks go.