Teach your students basic punctuation rules with this simple handout.
Capital letters
Use a capital letter to begin a sentence.
| The earth is round. | the earth is round |
| Water is a colorless liquid. | water is a colorless liquid |
Proper nouns
Proper nouns (personal names, geographical names, names of the days of the weeks and months) begin with a capital letter.
| Right | Wrong |
| John | john |
| India | india |
| Mary | mary |
| the Pacific | the pacific |
| Wednesday | wednesday |
| June | june |
The pronoun I is always written with a capital letter.
| Right | Wrong |
| I am a girl. | i am a girl. |
| I live in France. | i live in france. |
Full stop
A statement – affirmative or negative – always ends with a full stop.
| Right | Wrong |
| The sun rises in the east. | The sun rises in the east |
| My sister lives in California. | My sister lives in California |
| I don’t eat fish. | I don’t eat fish |
Question mark
A question ends with a question mark (?).
| Right | Wrong |
| Are you coming with me? | Are you coming with me |
| Is she your daughter? | Is she your daughter |
| Can I come with you? | Can I come with you |
Exclamation mark
An exclamation mark (!) is used after an interjection and at the end of a sentence that expresses excitement or a sudden emotion.
| Right | Wrong |
| Hurrah! We have won! | Hurrah. We have won. |
| Alas! We lost the match. | Alas. We lost the match. |
| What a pity! | What a pity. |
Possessives
We add an apostrophe (’) and –s to make the possessive form of a singular noun. A plural noun ending in –s takes only an apostrophe (’).
| Right | Wrong |
| Mohan’s books | Mohans books |
| My sister’s car | My sisters car |
| The boy’s socks | The boys socks |
| The girls’ dresses | The girls dresses |
| Children’s newspaper | Childrens newspaper |
| The ladies’ compartment | The ladies compartment |
