Punctuation & Capitalization
PUNCTUATION 1. . A period ends a sentence or provides an abbreviation. Ex: The United States emerged as a world leader in the 1940s. 2. , A comma indicates what is before and after can switch places. Ex: The most popular form of music during the war was jazz, but western swing, country, blues, and rhythm blues were also popular. 3. – An em dash draws emphasis and can replace a comma, parenthesis, and colon. Ex: Prejudices about women's working capabilities were extremely prominent in the armed forces – home to 470,000 servicewomen during the war. 4. - An en dash is used to hyphenate to connect words. Ex: A-line skirts which came down to the knee were popular. 5. : A colon tells us whatever comes next is directly related to the previous statement. Ex: The beginning of the war marked the strict rationing of fabric which led to dresses going from calf-length to knee-length. 6. ; A semicolon informs us that whatever is in front is an independent clause and whatever is after is directly related. Ex: An hourglass figure was strongly desired; if a woman did not naturally have this clothing was designed to help her achieve that 7. ? A question mark ends an interrogative sentence. Ex: Why did WW2 have such an impact on women's fashion trends? 8. ! An exclamation point ends an exclamatory sentence. Ex: There was ongoing inequality between men and women! 9. ‘ An apostrophe indicates a possession, contraction, or quote mark (quote within a quote). Ex: The tops of all women's dresses were modest.
