Punctuation
Updated: 01/18/2023 by Computer Hope
Punctuation or punctuation marks are typographic symbols that help separate, clarify, and emphasize written text. For example, the two statements "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots, and leaves" have the same words but are read differently when commas are added.
List of punctuation marks
Below are all the punctuation marks, in alphabetical order, used in writing. Clicking any of the following links also gives you further information about how the punctuation is used, it's location on a keyboard, and other related help.
| Punctuation | Name | Other Names |
|---|---|---|
| <> | Angle brackets | greater than and less than |
| ' | Apostrophe | single quote |
| ` | Back quote | acute, backtick, left quote, and open quote |
| {} | Braces | close brace, curly brackets, flower brackets, open brace, and squiggly brackets |
| [] | Brackets | close bracket, open bracket, and square brackets |
| : | Colon | |
| , | Comma | |
| ... | Ellipsis | Ellipses |
| — | Em dash | |
| – | En dash | |
| ! | Exclamation mark | bang and exclamation point |
| - | Hyphen | dash, subtract, negative, and minus sign |
| ? | Question mark | |
| " | Quotation mark | double quote, inverted commas, and quote |
| () | Parentheses | close parenthesis, open parenthesis, and parenthesis |
| . | Period | dot and full stop |
| ′ | Prime | double prime and single prime |
| ; | Semicolon | |
| / | Slash | Forward slash, oblique, and whack |
How do I check if I've punctuated correctly?
Use a grammar checker to verify that punctuation like periods and commas are properly used.