Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

N D E X
A, an, 272-273
A number of, 210, 218-219
Abbreviations: capitalization of, 272-273;
parentheses with, 150; periods with,
108, 109-112; plurals of, 198-199, 273
Accents, reproducing in dialogue, 318-319
Acronyms, 109
Active voice, 286-287; See also Passive voice
Adjectives: commas between, 82-83;
hyphens between, 24-26, 27, 128-135
Adverbs: hyphens after, 133-135; in dangling
or misplaced modifiers, 232, 237; in
split infinitives, 259-261
Agreement. See Pronoun-antecedent
agreement, Subject-verb agreement
All-caps text, 275
Alternative subjects, 56, 207-208, 255
And/or, 140-141
Antecedents: and agreement in gender, 253;
and agreement in number, 253-255;
and agreement in person, 256-258;
ambiguous, 252; definition, 250;
missing, 250-251; multiple, 255; wrong,
251-252; See also Pronouns
Apostrophe: in contractions, 109, 191-194;
functions of, 191; with plurals, 198-200;
with possessives, 194-198; See also
Plural formations, Possessives
Bias, avoiding, 290-296; See also Male-only
pronouns
Boldface, 123, 274-275, 282-283
Brackets: indicating changes or additions to
quotations, 166-170, 177, 184,
284-285; enclosing digressions within
parentheses, 150, 170; functions of,
166· with mathematical equations, 171;
with other punctuation, 171; with
references, 150, 170; with sic, 169-170,
177; with stage directions, 170, 283;
style conventions for, 171; with
surmised words, 170-171
British spelling. See Spelling variations
Capitalization: of abbreviations, 272-273; allcaps
text, 275; of compound words,
274; after a colon, 105, 269; of an edited
quotation, 168, 190; indicating
emphasis, 123, 267-268; functions of,
266; of headings, 273-27 4; indicating
humor or irony, 266-267; after internal
exclamation point, 121-122, 269; after
internal question mark, 116, 269; of list
items, 27 4; of nouns, 270-272; within
324
parentheses, 152, 268; of references,
272; small caps, 275--276; at start of
sentence, 268-269; of titles, 270-272;
of trade names, 271
Captions: colon with, 103; period with, 113
Case. See Pronouns
Citations. See Quotations
Clauses: definition, 55; examples of, 55-58;
indivisibility of, 60-61; See also
Dependent clause, Independent clause
Collective nouns, 214-216, 255
Colon: capitalization after, 105, 269; for
clarifying connection between points,
100-101; compared with dash, 102,
157-158; before dialogue, 83, 103; for
emphasis, 101-103; functions of, 97;
with headings and captions, 103; after
italicized text, 104; before lists, 99-100;
before quotations, 103; with ratios, 103;
compared with semicolon, 102, 104;
separating lead-in text from what
follows, 81, 97-100; spacing after, 104;
with stage directions, 104; with time
indicators, 103; with titles, 103
Comma: between adjectives, 82-83; after
clauses, 68-70; before clauses, 66-68;
between clauses, 63-66; within clauses,
60-63, 71-79, 79-83; comma splice,
65-66, 90, 94; compared with dashes
and parentheses, 71, 144, 154, 156;
around dialogue, 83-84, 107; with
elliptical constructions, 85-86;
functions of, 60; with interrupters,
72-73; with nonrestrictive elements,
73-79; with numbers and dates, 86;
indicating omitted words, 85; with
parenthetical elements, 71-79, 170;
with place names, 86; before
quotations, 84-85; between repeated
words, 86; when to use semicolon
instead of, 91-93; separating elements
in a series, 79-83; serial comma, 80-81
Comparatives, 135
Compound predicates, 56-57
Compound subjects, 56, 205-207, 255
Compound words: breaking at end of line,
127-128; capitalization of, 274;
definition, 24; hyphenation of, 24-28,
128-135, 163; plurals of, 42-43;
possessives of, 197; types of, 24
Conjunctions: comma before, 64-65;
definition, 57, 262; semicolons as
alternative to, 93-95; starting a