Punctuation in Academic Essays
Apostrophe
Subtopic
USED FOR
Contractions and possessives "The CD's not working properly"
Never plurals
Colons
A list of items
The researched team studied a number of different breeds: shorthaired, longhaired and exotic
Semicolons
INTRODUCES
An independent clause
Something that could stand alone
But related to the first part
Periods
INDICATES
Abbreviation of a word
End of a paragraph
End of a sentence
Commas
DIRECT QUOTATIONS
Smith notes, "Dogs have always been more popular than cats."
OXFORD COMMA
Apples, bananas, watermelons, cucumber, and kiwi
SUBJECT - VERB - COMPLEMENT
The chef, who's personality is annoying, hired me today to work for him
REPLACES
I have to go but apples, pizza, pasta and salt
The use of "and"
REPRESENTS
A pause in the flow of words
