Colons, Capitalization, and the Oscars

It’s more important to use a colon correctly than to decide whether you’ll capitalize an ordinary word that follows it. Here’s an example of a correctly used colon in a sentence about the Oscars: The awards show is working hard to pump up its social-media clout as it tries to leverage a growing phenomenon: More and more viewers are supplementing the experience of merely watching their favorite TV shows by joining in simultaneous running commentaries on Twitter and Facebook. That sentence is from the Wall Street Journal site; capitalizing all words after a colon is their house style

Commas, Convenience, and Credibility

There are rumors that Amazon.com will start selling merchandise at brick-and-mortar stores. The following sentence about those rumors illustrates a common punctuation mistake: “There wouldn’t have to be any [store] inventory, you would simply play with the stuff, talk to a professional …, and have it at your house in the next 24 to 48 hours,”  Jason Calacanis wrote in a recent blog post

Informal Prose, Cooking Time, and Clean Logic

Informal business writing can still be crisp and logical; here’s a tip to keep casual writing easy to follow. This 37-word sentence is by professional food writer Mark Bittman: My assumptions are that you’re using four chicken-breast halves, about a pound and a half altogether, not sliced into cutlets or fingers or pounded flat but left as they are, about an inch thick at the center. That sentence beautifully conveys Bittman’s conversational speaking tone

Twitter, Hyphens, and How to Type a Dash

It’s easy to learn when and how to type a dash instead of a hyphen. Hyphens (-) connect words, while dashes (—) connect larger parts of a sentence. This paragraph illustrates the difference: Twitter, the minimalist-format social network that claims to have 100 million users, has built its reputation around its simplicity

Lists, Paragraphs, and Eating Out in San Francisco

Lists are an extremely clear and user-friendly way to present information, but they can be tricky to punctuate. Here’s one tip. Sometimes a paragraph ends with a statement that introduces several following paragraphs