3. Tell about yourself to your classmates. Practice “Introducing yourself before Giving a Speech, at a Professional Event” etc.

There are two major styles of punctuation in English: American or “traditional punctuation” and British punctuation or “logical punctuation.” These two styles differ mainly in the way in which they handle quotation marks.

• The full stop (British), or period (American) (.) is used to mark the end of a sentence. It is also used to mark abbreviation of names as initials. E.g.: He is a student; Dr., Ms.

• The comma (,) is used to make the meaning of sentences clear. E.g.: We usually eat bread and butter, jam or marmalade, and cheese, eggs bacon or salami.

• The exclamation mark (!) is used to mark an exclamation. E.g.: Fantastic, we closed the deal!

• The question mark (?) is used to mark the end of a sentence which is a question. E.g.: Will you go with me?

• The apostrophe (‘) is used to mark possession. E.g.: John’s book, and to mark letters omitted in contractions, such as you’re for you are.

• Brackets ({} [] ()) are used for parenthesis, explanation or comment. E.g.: “John Smith (the elder, not his son…)”

• The colon (:) is used to explain or start an enumeration. E.g.: The bookstore specializes in three subjects: art, architecture, and graphic design.

• The semicolon (;) is often used to break up listings with commas. E.g.: “She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman’s son; and George, a gaunt kind of man.”

• Quotation marks are used to mark quotation. E.g.:“Practice what you preach.”

• The dash (-) is a horizontal line that shows a pause or break in meaning, or that represents missing words or letters.

a) Use a dash to show a pause or break in meaning in middle of a sentence. E.g.: My sisters – Aisham and Rukiya – are visiting China.

b) Use a dash to show an afterthought. E.g.: I attached the photo to my email – at least I hope I did it.

c) Use a dash like a colon to introduce a list. E.g.: Don’t forget to buy some food – bread, eggs, tuna and cheese.

d) Use a dash to show that letters or words are missing. E.g.: He will look _____ the children. There are two kinds of dash: 1) the en-dash (-), which is width of the letter “n”

and 2) the em-dash (–), which is width of the letter “m”

• The hyphen (-) is a very short horizontal line between words. There is no space between a hyphen and the character on either side of it.

1. use a hyphen with some compound words. E.g.: book-case (or bookcase)

b) use a hyphen with some compound words. E.g.: a blue-eyed boy (but The boy was blue-eyed)

3. use a hyphen with certain prefixes. The prefixes all-, ex-, and self- usually need a hyphen: E.g.: ex-wife.

d) use a hyphen when writing numbers 21 to 2/3, and fractions. E.g.: twenty-one, two-thirds

e) use a hyphen to show a word has been broken at the end of a line. E.g.: It was convenient time.

6. use a hyphen with “suspended compounds”. When we use several very similar compounds together, it may not be necessary to repeat the last part of the compound. E.g.: 1) They need to employ more full- and part- time staff. (not They need to employ more full-time and part-time staff.) 2) This rule applies only to 12-, 13- and 14- year old. (not This rule applies only to 12-year old, 13- year old and 14- year old.)

• An ellipsis (…) is used to mark omitted text. E.g.…sure

• The slash or stroke or solidus (/) is used to indicate alternatives. E.g.: “his/her”, or two equivalent meanings or spellings, such as “grey / gray.”

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