Punctuation Fact

In Spanish, as in English, a question is marked by a question mark. However, the Spanish place an inverted question mark at the beginning of a sentence and a normal question mark at the end.

RESOURCES

Interested in improving your punctuation?
Great!
Here are a few books and websites
that will help you:

Style Books and Guides

The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White — First published in 1918 by Strunk, a professor at Cornell University, it was known as “the little book” on the Ithaca, NY campus. Updated in 1957 by E.B. White, the great columnist for The New Yorker, it is still a little book, a timeless, 105-page paperback that should be read and referred to by anyone who writes.

The Associated Press Stylebook — The style bible of the newspaper industry clearly defines news writing. Often called the “journalist’s bible,” The AP Stylebook is an essential handbook for all writers, editors, students, and public relations specialists.

The Chicago Manual of Style — Now in its 15th edition, this University of Chicago Press manual is more comprehensive and easier to use than ever before. It remains an essential reference for authors, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers in any field.

Online Resources

Einfoweb.com — English punctuation marks and mechanics usage are something that everyone, no matter in what industry, needs. An apostrophe, colon, comma, dash, ellipse, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark, semicolon, and underlining are all necessary to usage, grammar, and mechanics. When you write, only through the correct use of punctuation usage rules will words make sense.

Guide to Grammar and Style — Jack Lynch, an associate professor of English at Rutgers University in New Jersey, compiled these grammatical rules and explanations, comments on style, and suggestions on usage for his classes.

OWL Online Writing Lab — A brief overview of punctuation: semicolon, colon, parenthesis, dash, quotation marks, and italics, brought to you by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

Guide to Grammar and Writing — This guide is sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, a Hartford, CT-based nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that supports scholarships, faculty development, and curriculum innovation.

HyperGrammar — The Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa, in Canada, put together this online directory that will help you understand and use different types of punctuation more effectively in your writing.

Apostrophe Protection Society — England’s protector of the apostrophe.

Literature Web Directory — A directory of literature and the arts.

DirPedia.com — Combining a dictionary, an encyclopedia and a Web directory.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks — Making fun of bad punctuation since 2004.

Books

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation — This easy-to-use reference guide and workbook by Jane Straus is now available in a NEW edition. Straus has added 50% more material — more rules, more exercises, more tests, and, of course, more answers. In 112 pages that are painless and amusing, Jane will reveal to you the mysteries of grammar and punctuation.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation — The international bestseller by Lynne Truss. In her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, Lynne says it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are.

How Not to Write: An Office Primer for the Grammatically Perplexed — Author Terence Denman sets outs the top 10 grammar myths and the 10 grammar rules to live and work by.

Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English — English is a living language, says author Patricia T. O’Conner. It grows, it changes and it can be messy and confusing. This witty, best-selling guide will give you a grasp of the subtleties of the language.

The Elephants of Style — Bill Walsh presents an acerbic, witty, in-depth look at the basics of style, including spelling, capitalizations, abbreviations, subject-verb agreement, and possessives. Ever wonder why major publications differ in their handling of basic spelling, capitalization, and punctuation issues? The answers are in this book.

Death Sentences — Don Watson details how cliches, weasel words, and management-speak are strangling public language.

How Not to Write: The Essential Misrules of Grammar — Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Safire, who writes the New York Times Magazine column “On Language,” hones in on mistakes that call attention to the major rules and regulations of writing.

The Geek’s Guide to Grammar — From pronouns to participles, Linda J. Beam tells you everything you need to know.

Common Errors in English Usage — Since 1997, Paul Brians’s website, “Common Errors in English,” has attracted more than five million visitors. His entertaining and essential information has become a enlightening and amusing book.

Don’t Let Your Participles Dangle in Public — A fun, easy-to-understand guide to American usage and writing styles by professional speaker M. Kay duPont, CSP.

The Pocket Idiot’s Guide To Grammar & Punctuation — Bring perfect grammar into your everyday language with this handy guide by writer/editor Jay Stevenson, Ph.D., who has taught at Rider University, Rutgers University, and Boston College.