1. Articles & Punctuation
© 2005 Ma Foi Management Consultants

2. Articles
• 'A' and 'An' are indefinite articles.
• 'The' is a definite article.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

3. Article – ‘A’
• 'A' is placed before consonant sounds:
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A boy
A zebra
A one-rupee coin
A university
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

4. Article – ‘An’
• 'An' is placed before vowel sounds:
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An orange
An umbrella
An heir
An honest man
An hour
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

5. Article – ‘The’
• When we refer to a particular person or
thing:
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I saw the man who sells vegetables.
• When a singular noun is meant to
represent a whole class:
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The leopard is the fastest animal
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

6. Article – ‘The’
• With names of gulfs, oceans, rivers,
mountains and groups of islands:
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The Indian Ocean
The Ganges
The Himalayas
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

7. Article – ‘The’
• With Ordinals:
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The first
The fifteenth
The twentieth
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

8. Article – ‘The’
• With Superlatives:
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The fastest boy
The longest river
The most beautiful girl
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

9. Article – ‘The’
• Before common nouns which are
unique:
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The earth
The sky
The moon
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

10. Article – ‘The’
• Before the names of certain books:
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The Ramayana
The Bible
The Iliad
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

11. Punctuation
• A full stop, question mark or
exclamatory mark is used at the end of
sentences:
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The children are studying well.
What are you doing?
This ice-cream tastes great!
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

12. Punctuation - Commas
• Used to link sentences with a
conjunction:
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The cottage was almost in ruins, but the
garden was lovely.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

13. Punctuation - Commas
• Used after a long introductory word,
phrase or clause:
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First, let us study this lesson.
After finishing the lesson, the students took
the test.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

14. Punctuation - Commas
• Before tags and comments:
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You're wrong, you know.
He is a lovely boy, isn't he?
• In lists:
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Please buy a book, some pencils, a few
erasers and a scale.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

15. Punctuation - Semicolon
• Used to link independent clauses not
joined by a coordinating conjunction:

The situation is hopeful; the storm may lift
soon.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

16. Punctuation - Semicolon
• To separate elements already
punctuated with commas:
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Invitations were mailed to professors,
associate professors and assistant
professors; the head of departments,
secretaries; graduates and
undergraduates.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

17. Punctuation - Semicolon
• Before conjunctive adverbs such as
therefore, moreover, consequently,
indeed etc.
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He fought hard; however, he lost.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

18. Punctuation - Hyphen
• Before a suffix to avoid confusion:
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bull-like
• After a prefix:
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co-pilot
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

19. Punctuation - Hyphen
• When the root word begins with a
capital letter:
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un-American
non-European
• When the root word begins with the
same letter as the prefix:
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counter-revolutionary
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

20. Punctuation - Hyphen
• To avoid ambiguity.
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A Turkish - bath attendant
• Fractions and numbers between 21 and
99.
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Four-fifth
Forty-five thousand and fifty-three
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

21. Punctuation - Colon
• After a formal salutation preceding a
message:
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Ladies and gentlemen: It gives me great
pleasure to introduce . .
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

22. Punctuation - Colon
• To introduce material that explains,
amplifies or interprets what precedes it:
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They didn't sleep last night: they must be
tired.
It is raining heavily: the roads are flooded.
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

23. Punctuation - Colon
• Before quotations in the text of a play.
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Romeo: It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
• With time in American English.
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6:30 am
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

24. Punctuation - Colon
• Before lists.
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This is what you'll need to buy: a notebook,
some paper and pens.
• In biblical references, dates and ratios.
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2:3
27:10:2005
© 2005 Ma Foi Management

25. Punctuation - Apostrophe
• In contraction:
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They're
Didn't
• To form possessives with singular and
plural nouns:
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The girl's dress
The girls' dresses
© 2005 Ma Foi Management