Punctuation marks

Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.

The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register and time and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author's (or editor's) choice. Tachygraphic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have wildly different rules.

The apostrophe ( ’ , often rendered as  ' ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves two main purposes: the omission of one or more letters (as in the contraction of does not to doesn't), and the marking of possessive cases (as in the cat's whiskers).

Brackets are tall punctuation marks used in matched pairs within text, to set apart or interject other text.

In British usage it normally refers to the "round" type, which is called a parenthesis mark in American usage.

The colon (:) is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.

As with many other punctuation marks, the usage of colon varies among languages and, within a given language, across historical periods. As a rule, however, a colon informs the reader that the following proves, explains or simply provides elements of what is referred to before.

The comma ( , ) is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, or with the appearance of a small filled-in number 9.

The comma is used in many contexts and languages, principally for separating things.

The comma may be used to perform a number of functions in English writing. It is used in generally similar ways in other languages, particularly European ones, although the rules on comma usage – and their rigidity – vary from language to language.

A dash is a punctuation mark. It is similar in appearance to a hyphen, but a dash is longer and it is used differently. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash (–) and them dash (—).

An exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang (!) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume, and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: "Watch out!"

A sentence ending in an exclamation point is an actual exclamation ("Wow!", "Boo!"), a command ("Stop!"), or intended to be astonishing or show astonishment: "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" exclamation points can also be placed mid-sentence with a function similar to a comma's: "On the walk, oh! there was a frightful noise."

A full stop (British English) or period (American English) is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences.

Usage: Abbreviations, Titles, Acronyms and Initialisms

Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word. They come as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single ('…') or double ("…").