The other marks of terminal punctuation are the exclamation mark (or point) and the question mark.
Honestly, I am not a proponent of the exclamation mark in any sort of abundance. In other words, use them sparingly. In technical writing, I don't think the exclamation mark should be used at all; in fact, I'd cut every instance of it in any piece I received. It looks unprofessional, and it does nothing to enhance the text. In fiction, it's only good in dialog, and only when it's not followed be a dialog tag.
Ex.
“Shut up,” John yelled
vs.
“Shut up!”
With question marks, it's a little different. Everyone uses questions, so they're a bit more common and can be used more liberally. I have a few thoughts on their use in dialog, but I won't go into that here.
As a general rule, the question mark goes within the quotation marks in dialog (ex. “Where is the store?”). If you're writing a question within text – say in technical writing – then you italicize it.
Ex.
The question, When is it appropriate to use colloquialisms in journalism?, is a common one.
These are both fairly simple, too. If you have questions on usage, please ask in the comments. We'll now be moving into more complicated items; those that give people more problems than ending a sentence correctly.
This is one in a series of articles on punctuation and grammar
Table of Contents:
- Grammar. Yes. Grammar: An introductory post on the series
- That's It. Period: A post on the full stop.
- Commas, Commas, Commas: A post on the use of commas
- You Say Potato; I Say Potato: A post on semi-colons
