Punctuation

  1. Commas are needed between the parts of a compound sentence:
    Example: John wanted to go to the movies, but Mary wanted to play basketball.
     
  2. Commas are not needed between the parts of a compound subject or compound predicate:
    Example:  Several Department of Transportation engineers and chamber of commerce representatives met to discuss the plan.
    Asbestos has many different applications but is used most frequently in building products, insulation materials, friction materials and textiles.
     
  3. A comma should not separate a subject from its predicate:
    Wrong: Proceeds from the sale of any property acquired under the provisions of this article, shall be deposited in the general fund.
     
  4. A comma is not needed to before the and or or in a simple series:
    Example:  Jerri bought a book, pen and pencil.

    A comma is needed before the and or or in series where one of the items includes an internal conjunction:
    Example:  The company manufactures floor and ceiling tiles, brake and clutch linings, and transite cement panels.

    Use a comma also before the concluding conjunction in a complex series of phrases:
    Example:  The main points to consider are whether the athletes are skillful enough to compete, whether they have the stamina to endure the training, and whether they have the proper mental attitude.
     

  5. Commas are needed to separate the year in a date only when the day is used:
    Example:  The minutes of the court dated Feb. 18, 1823, bound him to Selby.

    Example:  One Saturday evening in early June 1824, Andrew and another apprentice got into some serious trouble while attempting to attract the attention of two local girls.

    Example:  The meeting on Tuesday, June 24, was very productive. (Note that June 24 is correct, not June 24th.)
     

  6.  Ellipses are made up of three periods with no spaces between them. A space precedes and follows the periods. Where a quotation ends in a period, there is a space between the period and the ellipses:

    Example:  All departments, institutions and agencies ... shall give preference to Department of Corrections products in purchasing. ... ... the department may use the labor of inmates confined in the state prison to work on farms. ...
     

  7. Abbreviations and acronyms should not be spaced:

    Example:  N.C. OSHA U.S. DOT e.g. ILO Ph.D. AFL-CIO

    Note that North Carolina should be spelled out when used as a noun. The abbreviation N.C. may be used when it functions as an adjective. Use N.C. Department of Labor in text.
     

  8. Initials of people's names are not spaced:
    Example: 
    G.J. Chesterton
    B.J. Frye L.E.
    Watson Electrical Contractor
     
  9. Do not use commas with Jr., Sr., II or III.
    Example:  Henry B. Daniels Jr., secretary of agriculture
    The keynote speaker will be John J. Jones Sr.
    Henry S. Smith II will moderate the panel discussion.
     
  10. In items that are typed, there should always be one space (not two) after the final punctuation of a sentence. The punctuation can be a period, question mark, exclamation point, ellipsis, parenthesis or quotation mark. Items that are typeset (or desktop published) should also have just one space after punctuation marks.
     
  11. The area code for phone numbers should be followed by a hyphen:
    Example: 919-733-7166 or 1-800-527-6762
     
  12. For time of day, use a.m. and p.m. Saying "12 noon" is redundant. Use "noon" by itself.
     
  13. For decades and abbreviations of decades, do not use an apostrophe before the "s."
    Personal income, adjusted for inflation, decreased during the 1990s.
     
  14. Do not hyphenate an adverb ending in "ly" that is used with a participle or adjective.
    Hyphenate self- compounds that precede a noun:
    Example:  self-interest self-portrait