BASIC RULES ON PUNCTUATION

1. Full Stop

-It is placed at the end of a sentence.

-Example : Mohan talked loudly.
2. Comma

It is used for the following purposes:

To separate words in a list

Example: There are seven colours in a rainbow. They are red, orange, yellow,
white, blue, indigo and violet.
To separate a series of actions
Example: The man rushed into the house, ran upstairs, grabbed his son from
the bedroom and dashed out of the burning house.
To introduce direct speech
Example : The secretary said, Please have a seat

3.

When reading, you must pause for a short while after a comma.

Question Mark

It is placed at the end of a question

Example: What is your name?

4. Exclamation Mark

An exclamation mark is used to express strong feelings such as anger,

excitement, great fear, surprise or shock.
The word after an exclamation mark (!) begins with a capital letter.

Be careful not to use too many exclamation marks at a time.

Example:

Please help us! Weve lost our way.

Congratulations! Youre the winner.
Hurry up! The taxi is going to be here in five minutes.

5. Apostrophe

The apostrophe is used to replace missing letters in contractions. Im and

dont are contractions.
The apostrophe is also used to show possession.

Example : Kim Lings house is on top of a hill- The house belongs to Kim Ling.

The apostrophe is placed after the plural form of a regular noun to indicate a
plural subject.

Example : The students bicycle are parked in a bicycle shed.

Forming possessives
the boys hat
three days journey
If the noun after of is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is
needed. For example: The car door.

 Showing omission
Hell go = He will go
couldve = could have (Not could of!)
Forming plurals
Apostrophes are used to form plurals of letters that appear in lowercase. For example:
Mind your ps and qs
6. Capital letters
The postman delivers letters to our homes.
The thief stole Helmis motorcycle, which was parked outside the post office.
The bold and larger letters in the sentences above are capital letters. Capital letters are
used for :

The beginning of a sentence

The first letter of proper nouns
Examples: Baharuddin, Alvin-names of people
Cameron Highlands, Selangor, Malaysia-names of places
Monday,March-day and months of the year or special days.

The pronoun I
Examples: I am a secondary school student

Exercise 1: Punctuate these sentences using capital letters where necessary.

1. there is an old man at the gate.

2. I met yusof at the town library.

3. Have you visited Mariam at the general hospital in ipoh?

4. Mount kinabalu in sabah is the highest mountain in southeast asia.

5. Singapore is situated to the south of johor.

6. Many hindus go to batu caves on thaipusam day.

7. Every Saturday, I play basketball with haziq and fikri

8. Malaysian celebrate the national day on 31 august.

Exercise 2: Insert the comma in the sentences correctly.

1. They needed a pair of scissors some glue old newspapers and some coloured
cloth.

2. She went to the grocery shop to buy some flour sugar margarine eggs and milk.

3. The old man bent down picked up the photo frame dusted it and looked at the
picture with tears in his eyes.

4. Please tell me when Lisa will be homesaid Dina.

5. Walk up the stairs turn right and walk until the end of the corridor.

6. The children knocked down a few pots of plants broke off some branches and
stepped on a few rows of flowerbeds.

7. To get good results you must work harder said the teacher to David.

8. Good morning Mr Lim said Christina.

Exercise 3: Pick out the words in the sentences below to form contractions. Underline
them and rewrite the sentences using contractions in the space given.
1. She is working in a restaurant.

2. You are late again.

3. We are trying our best.

4. Yasmin does not like tuna sandwiches.

5. I have two brothers and a sister.

6. There are many cows in the field.

7. You will be fourteen years old next June.

Exercise 4: Punctuate the paragraphs below with suitable punctuation marks.

pak samad and his wife siti sell fruits in a fruit stall near the flats they live in one of the units
in the block of flats
one afternoon siti went home for lunch she climbed up the stairs slowly when she reached her
flat on the second floor she saw the door to her flat open she knew that something wasnt
right
siti shouted help there s a thief in my flat
the thief heard her shouts he dashed out of the flat siti grabbed his shirt but he broke free and
ran down the stairs he stepped on a banana peel and slipped thud thud thud he went rolling
down he cried aloud in pain
ive sprained my ankle and I can t get up please send me to the hospital said the thief
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Exercise 5: Punctuate the sentences using the exclamation mark (!) where necessary.
Remember to use a capital letter to begin the new word.
1. Help someone has snatched y handbag.

2. Keep it up youre doing very well.

3. Wow what a beautiful bicycle you have.

4. Be careful therere a lot of potholes on the road.

5. Hurray were going to Cameron Highlands for a holiday.

6. Keep quiet I cannot study in such a noisy room.

7. Look theres a beautiful rainbow in the sky.

8. Oh no they lost the match again.