The simplest punctuation can sometimes cause the most confusion when writing a document; in this section we take a look at the use of the following: Capitals, Exclamation Marks, Brackets and Parentheses.

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The Capital

You use capital letters…
at the start of a sentence

a. Bali is an Indonesian Island
b. It is a lovely day

with proper nouns (particular persons, places and things):

a. Her name is Mary
b. She lives in Spain
c. She was born on Tuesday the sixth of June, 1998. She lives at 10 Greenstoke Avenue, Newbay, Bristol

with adjectives that come from proper nouns

a. They live in a Georgian house
b. He loved Japanese films

for the first and all of the main words in titles

a. The Great Gatsby
b. The Queen of England
c. The Heart of Darkness
d. The University of Delaware
e. The Second World War

For the pronoun ‘I’

a. In the future I hope that I will be able to visit Turkey

The Exclamation Mark

The exclamation mark is used to express exasperation,astonishment or surprise or to emphasise a comment or short, sharp phrase. For example:

• Help! Help!
• That’s unbelievable!
• Get out!
• Look out!

You can also use it to mark a phrase as humourous, ironic or sarcastic.
What a lovely day! (when it obviously is not a lovely day)
That was clever! (when someone has done something stupid)
Some general remarks:

• Don’t overuse the exclamation mark
• Don’t include a series of exclamation marks. e.g. I’ll never get it right!!!!

Brackets and Parentheses

The difference between a ‘bracket’ and a ‘parentheses’ can be a bit confusing.

Generally, parentheses refers to round brackets () and brackets to square brackets []. However, we are more and more used to hearing these referred to simply as ’round brackets’ or ’square brackets’.

Usually we use square brackets - [ ] - for special purposes such as in technical manuals. Round brackets - ( ) -, or ‘parentheses’ are used in a similar way to commas when we want to add further explanation, an afterthought, or comment that is to do with our main line of thought but distinct from it.

Many grammarians feel that the parentheses can, in fact, be replaced by commas in nearly all cases.

For example:

1. further explanation - The government’s education report (April 2005) shows that the level of literacy is rising in nearly all areas.
2. comment - I visited Kathmandu (which was full of tourists) on my way to the Himalayas for a trekking expedition.
3. afterthought - You can eat almost anything while travelling in Asia if you are careful to observe simple rules (avoiding unboiled or unbottled water is one of the main rules to be aware of.)