Punctuation marks guide your reader the way road signs guide a driver. Here are the essentials.
- Full stop (.) ends a statement.
- Question mark (?) ends a question.
- Exclamation mark (!) shows strong feeling.
- Comma (,) separates items in a list and follows opening phrases: “After lunch, we played cricket.”
- Apostrophe (‘) shows possession (the dog’s bone) or missing letters (don’t). It is not used for plurals.
- Quotation marks show exact words: She said, “I am ready.”
Its or it’s?
It’s means “it is” or “it has”. Its shows possession: “The cat licked its paw.”