Commas

Dashes

Semicolons

Colons

Apostrophes

Numbers

Numbers

Different situations require students to use either numerals (such as 1, 2, 3, etc.) or words (eighteen, twenty-five ) to represent numbers.

Use words to represent numbers when they begin a sentence.

Incorrect: 2,000 people attended Saturday's performance.

Correct: Two thousand people attended Saturday's performance.

Use numerals, or figures,to express

• days and years. October 30, 2000

  2002

  AD 1215

  3000 BC

• pages. The index begins on page 372.

  He wrote page 5 of his research paper yesterday.

• chapters The teacher asked the students to read Chapter 15 for tomorrow's class.

  Thursday's quiz covered material from Chapter 24.

• acts, scenes, and lines from a play. The theater company performed Act 1 from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest during the conference.

  The actor read Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1, lines 56-89 for his audition.

• exact amounts of money.
  $35.20

  $10,623

• addresses.
  Yoga Journal

  2054 University Avenue

  Berkeley, CA 94704

• decimals.
  34.7

  230.8

• fractions.
  1/4

  7 1/3

• percentages.
  79 percent

  93%

• time.
  5:30 PM

  11:15 AM

• statistics.
  a ratio of 5 to 1

  an average score of 84.