Open Source Bridge

General Rules of Punctuation Be consistent. Punctuate for clarity. Ask what in-house style is used or see how other publications handle specific cases when unsure. Communication is contextual. Formality will vary. American and British punctuation have differences.

Apostrophes: pronouns never have apostrophes and contractions always do.  Useful for rembering the difference between it's and its and who's and whose.

Possessives usually are 's but there is a ridiculous amount of detail for things like Achilles' heel and for appearance sake.  AP styluses 's for Moses's sandals.

On Twitter ok to drop apostrophes if it's a contraction that can't be mistaken for another word.  E.g. cant or  dont (OK, cant is a word, but it's obscure.)

Colon used for direct quotes, lists, emphasis.  A colon goes outside quotation mark unless it's part of the quote.  Capitalize first letter of word after colon if it's a complete sentence.  Can be casual on Twitter or Facebook, but on email or documents you want to do this.

Hyphen is short and connects words.  Dash is longer and breaks up thoughts.

Ellipses indicate that there is more to come.  People overuse these o line when they need a period.

There is never a reason to use more than one exclamation point.  It is the sign of a deranged mind.

Be sparing with parentheses as they interrupt the sentence.  Consider commas around phrase instead.  Two dashes are another alternative.  Use parentheses for putting spelling out an acronym.

AP style calls for one space after a period.  And no extra line after a paragraph.  MLA or other guides are different.

The comma. Not used online in Twitter etc. unless absolutely necessary to clarify.  AP style and British style does not put a comma before the and in a list.  All other styles use a comma before the and, as in "red, white, and blue."

Hyphens: main point is to avoid ambiguity.  Look it up in a dictionary if possible, but it is not standardized and up to your judgement.

Open source should technically be hyphenated because the two words together define the concept. But common usage has prevailed and we don't hyphenate.

When you have a string of adjectives, commas mean "and."

Commas block food the food from getting from the subject to the verb.  If you put a comma between the subject and verb it will starve.  Do NOT think of commas as a way of putting a pause in a sentence.

One way to think about commas is that if the word or phrase could be removed without changing the meaning you can separate it with a comma.  

Exclamation points:  you can get away with using two or three online for something really spectacular.  

Ampersands, and @ can be substitutes for words in casual writing.

Spell out percent when written.  Use % in tables.

Healthcare is one word.