You’ve probably seen these two little dots, one on top of the other, scattered throughout your reading material. But do you really know what they’re used for? The colon is not something that shows up ...

For writers at work, punctuation can slip from a matter of convention to one of obsession. I just finished my poetry thesis last week, and I’m embarrassed to admit the number of times I changed ...

Reading good prose should be like listening to a well-constructed piece of music: it should have rhythm; it should have cadences; in short, it should have style. In that sentence I have used the four ...

Are you a dashaholic? It’s a thing, apparently. I’m more of a colon abuser myself: as if everything I write is so important it requires the colon’s drumroll effect. I’ve known more than a few comma ...

America is now a nation at war. I’m not talking about the one between rich and poor, migrants and nativists, or Republicans and Democrats. No, this conflict is far more divisive and potentially ...

If you use the wrong one, you can always claim it was a typo. | Dominique James/iStock via Getty Images Plus Despite what its name suggests, a semicolon isn’t exactly just half a colon—it has its own ...