Punctuation 101: Quick Tips to Avoid Common Points of Confusion

By Susan MacLaughlin, Account Supervisor

As public relations practitioners, we are all pretty adept at using words to create effective messages and tell engaging stories, and after last month’s grammar tips from my colleague, Ashley Wilemon, determining which words to use should be a little easier.

However, even the most seasoned writers can fret about the little dots and dashes that help make sense of nouns and verbs. How often have you heard a conversation (or heated debate) regarding whether or not to add an apostrophe to a word, or if a sentence needs a comma? If you work in public relations, my guess is more than once or twice.

Sure, there a lot of punctuation rules, but if you keep the following quick tips in mind, your writing will be easier to follow and will require much less time to edit.

Serial Commas
Serial commas are a matter of style, but in the world of public relations, the Associated Press Stylebook is the final arbiter in all style debates.

Quick tip: In most cases, when your writing includes a list with a conjunction, it should not include a comma before the final item in the list (If you’re having trouble remembering conjunctions – check out the video.)

• We are reaching our fans on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The exception to this rule is when your list contains an internal conjunction. In this case, a serial comma is A-OK.

• I am pitching business, travel and leisure, and technology publications.

Apostrophes
Apostrophes might be little, but they carry a big punch. In fact, if used incorrectly, they can change the meaning of an entire sentence!

Quick Tip: As a general rule, use an apostrophe plus an s to make a word possessive. Simply add an ‘s’ to the word to make it plural.

• Duck’s = possessive
• Ducks = plural

One area of common confusion involves how to handle proper nouns that end in ‘s.’

Quick Tip: If a word ends in ‘s,’ simply add an apostrophe to the end of the word to make it plural. This is also true if the word in question is a proper noun.

• Kansas’ new statute will be debated by the U.S. Supreme Court later this year.
• Charles’ horse is brown.

Apostrophes can also be used to combine two words into a contraction:

• It’s = it is
• You’re = You are
• And just because we’re in the South ….. Y’all = You all

Quick Tip:  Use an apostrophe to replace the missing letter or letters in the contraction.