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

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT
• Marks used to end a sentence-period, question mark and exclama­
tion point.
• Marks used to link related elements-hyphen and slash.
• Marks used to set off digressions from the main flow-parentheses,
dashes and brackets.
• Marks used with quoted material-quotation marks and ellipses.
• A final mark, the apostrophe, is distinct enough not to be grouped
with any other. (In fact, some authorities do not consider it a punctu­
ation mark at all, but part of the inherent spelling of a word.)
This ordering has been done with a recognition that the distinctions
are not in fact that neat. Take the terminal punctuation marks: Periods
have functions other than ending a sentence; question marks and excla­
mation points occasionally appear in the middle of a sentence; a sentence
may end in an ellipsis or a dash rather than in any of the above. Similarly,
dashes may be used not only like parentheses but also like colons, to
separate elements, and sometimes like hyphens, to link elements. Missing
letters and words may, depending on the specifics of what is being done,
be indicated by periods, commas, semicolons, apostrophes, hyphens,
ellipses or dashes. Thus, along with reviewing its various roles, the section
devoted to each mark provides cross-references to any other marks that
can perform a similar function, and discusses when it is appropriate to
select one mark over another. Most sections end with a discussion of
style conventions, including instructions on how to position the mark
when it exists alongside another.
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