A full stop (.) used to end a sentence. The full stop indicates that a point has been made and move on to further related point.

The question mark simply indicates that a sentence is asking a question. It always comes at the end of a sentence.

An exclamation mark (!) indicates strong feeling within a sentence, such as fear, anger or love. It is also used to accentuate feeling within the written spoken word.

Comma (,) is useful in a sentence to pause before proceeding or add a phrase that does not contain any new subject or separate items on a list.

The semi-colon (;) is perhaps the most difficult sign of punctuation to use accurately. If in doubt, avoid using it and convert the added material into a new sentence.

The colon (:) within a sentence makes a very pointed pause between two phrases. It is most commonly used when listing Or it can be used within a heading, or descriptive title.

The ellipsis mark consists of three dots (...). We use the ellipsis mark in place of missing words. If we intentionally omit one or more words from an original text, we replace them with an ellipsis mark.

Parentheses or Brackets ( ) are used to make an aside, or a point which is not part of the main flow of a sentence. If you remove the words between the brackets, the sentence should still make sense.

A different set of square brackets [ ] can be used to abbreviate lengthy quotations or to correct the tense of a quotation to suit the tense of your own sentence.

Braces are also known as curly brackets ({ }). It is mostly used in music or poetry. The only use for a brace in writing is when a writer presents a list of equal choices for a reader or in a number set.

The asterisk (*) is a little star symbol which can be used to indicate a footnote or be used to edit swear words in informal text. A footnote should begin on the bottom of the same page.

Single quotation marks (' ') are used to show (or mark) the beginning and end of a word or phrase that is somehow special or comes from outside the text that we are writing. Use single quotation marks around the title or name of a book, film, ship etc.

Double Quotation or speech marks (“….”) are used to mark out speech or when quoting someone else's speech.

The apostrophe (’), sometimes called an inverted comma has two main uses. The apostrophe indicates possession or ownership or indicate where a letter is omitted:

The slash (/) is also known as: forward slash, stroke, oblique. It can be used to indicate a choice between the words it separates, to indicate alternatives, to show a range or in some abbreviations.

The hyphen or dash sign (-) is used to link words together. The hyphen is also used when a word is split between two lines.

Underscore ( _ ) is a line below text-level, and is mainly used to show a space where a space is not allowed, such as in internet usernames, email addresses and some computer programs.

A Caret (^) is mainly used to highlight that something is missing from the original text. In mathematics, it represents an exponent, square, cube, or other power.

The character (#) used to represent the word number; the hash sign; also called the pound sign in the US.

Ampersand (&) marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases.