Do not put a comma between the month and year in dates, but add it if the day is mentioned:

* April 2008 * Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Dash

Do put dashes to explain, clarify and summarize a sentence:

* He had talked for an hour about one of his main qualities – exceptional modesty.

Do not mix up a dash with a hyphen which is meant to link words together:

* Her aunt – who is a cheerful 98- year-old lady – is quite fond of mountain biking.

Ellipsis

Do insert a space before and after an ellipsis if it is in the middle of the sentence:

* Basically three points are enough … don’t make a fly-blown picture out of your copy.

Do not use periods to create the ellipsis character. Hold down ALT and CTRL and press the period key instead.

Full Stop

Do use a full stop with an abbreviation for number 1:

* No. 1

Do not use it in other abbreviations:

* BBC

Quotation Marks

Do place commas and periods inside quotation marks, and colons and semicolons – outside them:

* Mark Twain said: "April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."

Do not use double quotation marks if you refer to something new or unfamiliar – use single ones instead:

* This client is used to adding ‘asap’ literally to every message.

Semicolon

Do use a semicolon to separate either phrases containing commas or statements that are closely related to each other:

* Each department is headed by several managers: Ron and Sue; Joe, Tony and Liza; and Jake and Alice.

Do not put it, however, when a simple comma is more appropriate.

Slash

Do use a slash to indicate alternatives, to separate lines in poetry and in URLs:

* professional SEO copywriting/sales letter writing * http://www.copywriting911.com/copywriting-services/

Do not put spaces before or after a slash.

And one more thing, next time you see that illiterate panda, just get him to read this ;)

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