
Develop a strong command of basic punctuation by exploring commas, colons, semicolons, quotation marks, apostrophes, dashes, and parentheses to boost writer confidence.
Learn to use end marks: periods, exclamation points, and question marks, including direct questions versus indirect questions, with examples of statements, commands, and strong emotions.
Learn how to use commas to separate items in a series, before and in multi-clause sentences, and to clarify subjects, predicates, and prepositional phrases.
Learn how to use commas with non-essential elements, including participles and infinitives, adjective clauses, and appositive phrases, plus interjections, conjunctive adverbs, and introductory clauses and phrases to clarify meaning.
Explore how colons introduce lists and quotes, mark time and references, and how semicolons join independent clauses, manage complex lists, and with conjunctive adverbs.
Learn to use quotation marks to mark direct quotations, titles, and definitions, with comma placement, interruptions, dialogue formatting, and handling quotations within quotations.
Learn how apostrophes show possession and form contractions, using 's for common nouns and only an apostrophe for proper nouns, with rules for plurals, joint ownership, and contractions.
Explore how dashes and parentheses set off extra information, emphasize interruptions, and govern capitalization and punctuation with commas, semicolons, and colons.
Celebrate your progress and congratulations on finishing this course by strengthening your punctuation and writing, and return to this open resource anytime to keep improving.
Welcome to Punctuation Basics, where you will improve your writing by building up your understanding of basic punctuation.
My name is Jason Link, and I’m a published writer and a former English instructor. I have taught students from all over the world and have had the opportunity to teach in the US and abroad. For over five years, I lived in Nicaragua and during that time, I taught English and writing to students from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, many of whom did not have English as their first language. I’m privileged to share all of this teaching experience with you in this course.
Throughout this course, I will share with you straightforward explanations on how punctuation works. We will go over:
end marks
commas
colons and semicolons
quotation marks
apostrophes
dashes
parentheses
By the end of this course, you will have a strong understanding of punctuation basics. You will develop a new confidence in your writing.
Thank you for your interest in Punctuation Basics. If you’re ready to learn more and sign up for the course, click the enroll button and dive into the lessons. You can also check out the lessons that are free to preview.
See you on the inside!