Your Mission:

1
Your Mission

• To Study the Colon
• To Study the Dash
• To Study the Hyphen
• To Study Brackets

2
colon

• Rule 1 Introduce a List.
• Example
• Bring the following forks, knives, and spoons.

3
colon

• Rule 2 Introduce a Second Main Clause Which
  Explains the First.
• Example
• Her excuse is valid she does not have
  transportation.

4
colon

• Rule 3 Emphasize a Following Appositive.
• Example
• He had only one motive love.

5
Dash --

• Rule 1 Set Off a Parenthetical (information in
  between) Element.
• Example
• He told herbelieve it or notto leave.

6
Dash --

• Rule 2 Emphasize an Appositive.
• Example
• English, history, and scienceall are required.

7
Hyphen -

• Rule 1 Join Compound Words Functioning as a
  Single Unit.
• Example
• May I introduce my mother-in-law?
• Donny has a better-late-than-never disposition.
• NOTE The hyphen is shorter than the dash.

8
Hyphen -

• Rule 2 Join Fractions and Compound Numbers from
  21 to 99.
• Example
• He gave me two-thirds of his pay check.
• Nathan is twenty-one years old today.

9
Hyphen -

• Rule 3 Use with Prefixes Ex- and Self-.
• Example
• Mr. McCaslin is the ex-president of the company.
• Self-denial builds character.

10
Brackets

• YOU HAVE NO TIME in timed writing to copy
  unnecessary words, so leave them out!
• Use a bracket to show your deletions.

11

• "Rome had several mad emperors. Nero was the
  maddest of them all. . . . Legend has it . . . he
  played his harp while the city went up in
  flames."
• The 4th dot after all is a period for the end
  of the sentence.
• DO NOT leave out a phrase like legend has it,
  because that would change the authors meaning!

12

• "Rome had several mad emperors. Nero was the
  maddest of them all. . . . Legend has it . . . he
  played his harp some say he fiddled while the
  city went up in flames.
• Notice the brackets to replace he with the
  name. Notice its not He Nero was
• Notice the brackets to make an inserted comment
  after harp. Only do that if its really
  necessary and will save you time later.