Capitalisation

1. Capitalise the first word of every sentence, even if it is part of a name that is usually not capitalised.
2. Capitalise the first word in a direct quotation. If the quotation is not a complete sentence, begin it with a small letter.
3. Capitalise the days of the week and months of the year, but not the seasons.
4. Capitalise proper nouns and proper adjectives, which are the names of specific persons, places, or things.
5. Capitalise the regions of the country, but do not capitalise directions or points on the compass.
6. Capitalise titles with names, and also capitalise the titles when they stand in place on names.
7. Capitalise the first word and all important words in the titles of books, poems, paintings, and the like.
8. Words like school, hotel, church, and street, are not capitalised unless they are part of a proper name.
9. Do not capitalise a, an, and the unless they are part of a proper name.

Commas

1. Use a comma with a conjunction to join two simple sentences into one compound sentence. A semicolon could be used instead of the comma-conjunction form.
2. Use a comma to separate items in a list of three or more. Use one less comma than there are items in the list.
3. Use a comma after a phrase or dependent clause occurring before the subject and the independent clause.
4. Use a comma between an introductory verb and a quotation.
5. Use commas to separate appositives from the rest of the sentence.
6. Use commas to keep parenthetical phrases separate from the rest of the sentence.
7. Use commas to separate nouns of address from the rest of the sentence.
8. Use commas to separate place names and numbers.
9. Use commas to avoid confusion.
10. Never use a comma unless you have a reason to do so.

Semicolons

1. Use a semicolon between two sentence structures not connected by and, or, but, for, not, yet, or so.
2. When two sentences are linked by conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, in fact, for example, on the other hand, you must use a semicolon before the connectives and a comma usually follows them.
3. Another use of the semicolon is to separate items in a series of if any of them contain commas.

Apostrophes

1. To make a singular noun or an indefinite pronoun show ownership, add 's.
2. Possessive pronouns never have apostrophes, even though some end in s.
3. Most plural nouns already end with the letters s or es. So to make them show ownership, add just an apostrophe.
4. If a plural noun ends with a letter other than s, make it possessive by adding 's.
5. Certain expressions of time and money are always written with apostrophes, although these apostrophes do not indicate ownership in the usual sense.
6. Use an apostrophe to take the place of letters left out when you write a contraction.
7. To form the plurals of figures, letters, symbols, and words referred to as words, you should add 's.
8. When you choose to write out numbers and symbols, no apostrophe is needed.

Quotation Marks

1. Use quotation marks when you record someone's exact words.
2. Direct quotations begin with capital letters and are set off from the sentences in which they appear by commas.
3. When commas and periods come next to quotation marks, they always come before the quotation marks.
4. Semicolons and colons go outside the quotation marks.
5. If the quoted material is an question or an exclamation, its question marks or exclamation point goes inside the closing quotation mark. But if the whole sentence is a question or an exclamation, put the question marks or the exclamation point outside the closing quotation mark. In the event that the question ends with a quoted question, use one question mark only and put it inside the quotation marks.
6. Do not use quotation marks if you are reporting in your own words what someone has said.
7. Quotation marks are used to record dialogue. Each time the speaker changes you should begin a new paragraph.
8. Quotation marks enclose the titles of short works.
9. Quotation marks enclose words being defined or referred to as words.

The Colon

1. Use a colon after and independent clause to introduce a list when you do not use the words for example or such as.
2. Do not use a colon when the list immediately follows a verb or a preposition.
3. Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce an explanation or elaboration. If an independent clause follows the colon and expresses a rule, begin it with a capital letter.
4. Use a colon to introduce a long or formal quotation.
5. Use a colon to separate hours from minutes.
6. Use a colon to follow the greeting in a business letter.

Parentheses, Dashes, Brackets

1. Parentheses indicate the greatest degree of separation between the enclosed word group and the rest of the sentence.
2. I the word group in parentheses occurs within a sentence, do not start it with a capital letter or end it with a period, even if the word group is a complete sentence.
3. If the word group is a question or an exclamation, place the question mark or exclamation point inside the parentheses.
4. If the material in parentheses is a complete sentence standing by itself, begin it with a capital letter and end it with a period inside the closing parenthesis.
5. Use dashes to indicate greater separation than commas, by less than parentheses. Dashes mark an abrupt change of thought or structure in a sentence.
6. Use a single dash to emphasise an added comment.
7. Use a dash to do the work of a colon when a colon seems too formal.
8. If the interrupting word group is a statement, no period is needed inside the dashes. But if it is a question or an exclamation, you must add a question mark or exclamation point before the second dash.
9. Brackets have only two common uses. In quoted material they show that a clarification or explanation has been added. Brackets are also used to set off interrupting elements that occur in material already enclosed by parentheses.

End Punctuation

1. If you want to indicate a statement of fact or opinion, end your sentence with a period.
2. If you want to indicate a direct question, use a question mark as end punctuation.
3. If you want to indicate and indirect question hidden in a statement, use a period. A question mark would also be appropriate.
4. Polite requests may be punctuated with periods, especially if the answer it not much in doubt. A question mark would also be appropriate.
5. Reserve the exclamation point for use in sentences that express very strong feelings.
6. A command could end with either a period or an exclamation point, depending on the force you want to convey.

Numbers

1. Most of the time numbers in sentences should be spelled out. However, use figures for dates, hours, addresses, page numbers, exact sums of money, and measurements expressed with common abbreviations.
2. Use words to write round numbers or indefinite numbers.
3. Spell out the ordinal numbers, which express order or position.
4. Spell out any number that can be written in one or two words. But use figures for numbers that would require more than two written words.
5. Spelled fractions are hyphenated if they are used as adjectives, but not hyphenated if they are used as nouns.
6. Never start a sentence with figures. Either spell out the numbers, or recast the sentence so the figures come in the middle or at the end.
7. If one item in a series requires the use of numerals, list every item with figures.