Punctuation
Q. Our marketing department puts a boilerplate on all advertising. It lists the different facilities in our system and each is followed by the city where it is located. I believe that after each city there should be a semicolon. Now it reads, City Hospital, Boston, Regional Hospital, Brookline, Community Hospital, Newton, Union Hospital, Braintree, etc. The boilerplate is five lines long and lists lots of facilities. Answer »
Q. Is it ever allowable to ascribe a comment to an individual by placing the comment in quotation marks if the quoted comment is not exactly what the individual said, but rather a recollection of the writer? Or would the writer have needed to record (by writing or electronic recording) the exact comment if it were intended to be later conveyed in writing within quotation marks? Answer »
Q. How would I punctuate the end of a sentence that ends with an abbreviation? For example, “I attended a meeting at ABC, Inc.” Two periods don’t look right. Answer »
Q. When ending a sentence with an abbreviation, do you need two periods? The event was held in Washington D.C.. Answer »
Q. When the author has a middle initial are two periods used in a bibliography? Jordan, Alyce A.. “Rationalizing the Narrative.” Answer »
Q. Should one put a period on either side of the parenthesis that ends a parenthetical list ending with “etc.” or just one? Example: We have fruit (apples, oranges, etc.). Answer »
Q. In the following sentence, I omitted the period per CMOS 6.123: . . . as shown in the Sony Film Classics 2006 documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”. My colleague, however, said the period should remain, because it belongs to the sentence, not the title of the movie. Answer »
Q. My question is about whether or not periods should be placed at the end of a URL used within a sentence. My coworkers say that we don’t need a period at the end of a website address. Answer »
Q. Is it appropriate to add a semicolon before i.e. or e.g. ? For example, is it correct to say “by focusing on prevention; i.e., identifying and intervening”? Answer »
Q. I am in a writing/editing group, and everyone here uses then as a conjunction. For example: “I plan to work from home until he is finished then I will come to the office.” Sometimes they put a comma before then. Will you please explain how then is to be punctuated? They are editing their customers’ documents so that they now reflect incorrect usage. Answer »
Q. I am a technical writer for a game corporation and we are working on training documents. Is there a rule that I can call attention to in order to discourage the overuse of parentheses? Right now I don’t have anything to show in order to prove my point. Perhaps I am the one who is incorrect; either way, I would like a rule to reference if there is one. Answer »
Q. What’s the proper orientation of the apostrophe when using a contraction such as ’70s or a title such as ’Night Mother? Should it curve as the computer sets it? Answer »
Q. I have a question that involves multiple adjectives and compound adjectival phrases. How would you punctuate the phrase “hard-drinking, hard-drugging, womanizing cowboy-landed-gentry myth,” or should phrases this complex just be avoided? Answer »
Q. Is it ever possible to put a period after other punctuation as in: He had asked, “Will she go?.” Answer »
Q. I was hoping you could tell me if brackets can be used instead of parentheses for most things. For example, HG Blending Salt without any additives (P7-726) and HG Blending Salt (P7-727) with an additive. Could I use brackets instead? Answer »
Q. As you know, CMOS 6.64 says, “When a colon introduces two or more sentences . . . the first word following it is capitalized.” The two examples seem to suggest that the sentences following must comprise a series of some sort. Based on my understanding, I lowercased the first word following the colon in these two sentences: Answer »
Q. Contracts often employ defined terms in quotes and parentheses, e.g., ABC Corp. (the “Seller”) shall sell ten widgets to XYZ Corp. (the “Buyer”). When drafting such a contract, I always put a period after the close parenthesis if it is the end of the sentence, such as in the above example. But it’s like listening to nails on a chalkboard to me to have a period essentially (ignoring the parenthetical) follow the period employed in an abbreviation. What do you recommend? Answer »
Q. Dear CMOS, I am working on a book for children that uses both Spanish and English. CMOS 7.52 notes that translations appear in quotation marks or parentheses, and examples show commas inside the quotation marks. However, I have a sentence that ends with a translated word and an exclamation point. Would the exclamation point (and in other cases, the question mark) come before or after the last quotation mark? The exclamation point must be included. The sentence currently reads: The Spanish word for puzzle means “head breaker!” Answer »
Q. Where does the second comma belong in this phrase: my cousin, Joseph’s son? Is it my cousin, Joseph’s, son? But you wouldn’t say “my cousin son.” Rather it should be “my cousin’s son.” Answer »
Q. Have you dropped use of the printer’s rule? In the 15th edition, it appears that you do not italicize punctuation after italics, whether for titles or in running text. I can’t find a discussion of this point, and wondered if you could clarify how to set punctuation after italics. Thank you. Answer »
Q. Is it always necessary to use an en dash while it is representing a range of numbers(15–30)? Answer »
Q. Our writing department uses Chicago’s style of putting spaces between the periods in ellipses. The graphic designers argue that in typesetting, the space is much smaller, and so use the ellipses character that is built into our publishing software. Who is correct? Answer »
Q. I’m teaching a class at the university after a long break and have discovered that most of my students are putting commas or other punctuation outside quotes rather than inside. Is either correct? Answer »
Q. Does the following sentence require a question mark or can it be given a period? Would you please make sure she gets a letter for her two scarves, ten stocking caps, men’s clothing, and household items brought in on October 30 of last year. Answer »
Q. Oh, English-language gurus, is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing? This author is giving me a fit with some of her overkill emphases, and now there is this sentence that has both marks at the end. My everlasting gratitude for letting me know what I should tell this person. Answer »
Q. In the initial manuscript stage (submitted by hard copy, if it matters), is it preferable to include page numbers or not, considering that they would be useful for editors’ reference but do not reflect the actual page numbers used for publication? And if page numbers are preferred, where do they go? Should the first page be numbered? Should pages with endnotes? Bibliography? Answer »
Q. In Canada we have a province that is almost always abbreviated as B.C.. When using it at the end of a sentence do you add the period (as I just did), or leave it as is? Without the period, it looks like a run-on sentence, but with the period it looks like too many dots. Answer »
Q. Where does punctuation fall in the context of botanical varieties, which are treated with single quotation marks? I have been assiduously changing commas that are inside the final single quote, moving them outside: Excellent garden varieties include Ceanothus ‘dark star’, ‘Yankee Point’, and ‘Joyce Coulter’. But I’m now starting to have doubts. Answer »
Q. When using a superscript footnote number at the end of a sentence, should the period precede or follow the footnote number? What about footnote numbers in midsentence that fall next to some other form of punctuation (comma, semicolon, etc.)? Answer »
Q. I frequently edit indexes for heavily illustrated books. The indexer has been instructed to index the photographs. The result can be somewhat strange: Answer »
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