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

sentence with, 262-263; subordinating,
57-58, 68
Contractions, 109, 191-194
Dangling modifiers, 232-233, 234-236
Dashes: 2-em dash, 153, 164-165; 3-em dash,
153, 165; indicating a break or tum in
content, 156-158, 262; compared with
colon, 102, 157-158; enclosing
digressions, 154-156; indicating
disjointed speech, 159-160; em dash,
functions of, 154; for emphasis,
154-158; en dash, 142, 153, 162-163;
compared with hyphen, 138, 162-163;
indicating interrupted dialogue, 138,
158-159; compared with parentheses
and commas, 71, 144, 154-156; setting
off source of quotation, 160; style
conventions for em dash, 160-161;
types of, 153
Dates: apostrophe in, 193-194, 199; comma
in, 86; slash in, 142; small caps with,
275-276; indicating uncertainty in, 119
Decimal points, 113
Dependent clauses: avoiding before a colon,
98; comma before or after, 66-70;
definition, 57-58; pronouns that
introduce, 58, 244-247; restrictive and
nonrestrictive, 75-79
Dialogue: indicating accents and speech
patterns in, 318-319; indicating breaks
or interruptions in, 158-160; colon
before, 83, 103; comma before or after,
83-84, 107; using double contractions
in, 192; indicating emphasis in, 137,
267-268, 278-280; indicating hesitation
in, 186-187; one-sided, 185, 189;
quotation marks around, 172-175;
indicating special intonations in,
136-138; indicating unvoiced thought,
175,280
Dictionaries, differences in approach, 16-17,
21-22, 50-51, 281
Each, agreement with verb, 207, 217, 254,
298
Either/or, 228
Ellipsis: functions of, 184; indicating
hesitation in dialogue, 186-187;
indicating omissions in quotations, 167,
168, 177, 184-185, 189-190; indicating
one-sided dialogue, 185, 189; indicating
significance or suspense, 188-189; style
conventions for, 189-190
Elliptical constructions, 85-86, 241-242
Em dash. See Dashes
Emphasis. See Boldface, Capitalization,
Colon, Dashes, Exclamation point,
Italics
INDEX
En dash. See Dashes
Every, agreement with verb, 207, 217, 254,
298
Exclamation point: as attention-getter, 123;
capitalization after, 121-122, 269;
before ellipsis, 189; functions of, 120;
indicating importance or emotion,
120-122; after italics, 124; avoiding
overuse of, 123; instead of period, 108,
124, 183; combined with question mark,
123-124; with rhetorical questions,
117-118, 122, 123; within a sentence,
84, 121-122, 124; style conventions for,
124
Faulty parallelism. See Parallel structure
Fog Index, 304-305
Foreign words and names: italicizing of,
280-282; plurals of, 45-47; spelling of,
8, 22; See also Latin words
Fractions, 30-31
Fragments. See Sentences
Gerunds, 56,205,225
Grammar: definition, 201; See individual
grammar topics
Headings: capitalization of, 273-27 4; colon
with, 1 03; italicizing of, 283; period
with, 113
Homonyms: definition, 1 0; examples of
common errors, 10-15
Hyphen: after adverbs, 133-135; after
comparatives or superlatives, 135;
commonly mishyphenated words,
27-28; compared with em dash, 138;
compared with en dash, 162-163;
functions in punctuation, 125;
functions in spelling, 24; in numbers,
30-3l;in phrases,26; withprefixes and
suffixes, 28-30, 50, 128; in punctuation
of compound adjectives, 83, 128-135;
indicating special intonations in
dialogue, 136-138; in spelling of
compound words, 24-28, 132; as a
substitute for repeated words,
135-136; suspension hyphen, 135-136;
indicating words being spelled out,
136-137; in word breaks at end of line,
125-128
Indefinite pronouns, 217-218, 254, 298, 300
Independent clauses: using before a colon,
98; commas before and after, 66-70;
comma between, 63-65; commas
within, 60-63, 71-79, 79-83; definition,
57; semicolon between, 65, 89-90,
93-96
325