This is a guide for myself to reference, but I’m leaving it here to help anyone else who needs it. This is some of the more common stuff I have trouble with. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’s a small start.
“In speech, punctuation remains inside the quotation marks,” she said.
He added, “If a speaking dialogue tag (in this case, “added”) comes before the speech, you connect it with a comma and capitalize the first letter.”
She snapped her fingers impatiently. “But if it’s an action unrelated to the actual act of speaking, end it with a period. Don’t connect it with a comma like the above.”
“For sentences that have dialogue tag shoved in the middle,” he said, “note the lower case at the second part of this sentence and the comma after the ‘said’. It’s because they’re still a part of the same sentence.”
“It was just briefly interrupted.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “These here are all independent sentences, so they each require a period at the end.”
“But if the sentence has a dialogue tag coupled with an action in between speaking,” he quipped, leaning forward onto his arms, “a comma is more appropriate.”
“Though, it’s different if the sentences are independent,” she reminded him. He gave her a sheepish look. “This now begins a new sentence that deserves capitalization and a period before the speech.”
Parentheses in the middle of a sentence (for the most past) does not require any ending punctuation within it.
The ending punctuation of a sentence that has a set of parentheses at the end acts as normal (in other words, it stays outside the parentheses).
(If the parentheses is its own separate sentence, the punctuation remains inside the parentheses.)
When using em dashes in place of parentheses—in this particular case—the comma gets dropped.
When using em dashes in place of parentheses (in the above case), the comma gets dropped.
Having spaces before and after the em dash — like so — is more common seen in newspapers and is commonly accepted in British English.
“But when you have some speech”—he cracked his neck, breathing a sigh of relief—“like this, the em dashes are outside the quotation marks.”
“If you’re using it because someone is getting interrupte—” He dropped to the ground, narrowly missed getting hit with a rubber chicken. “Well, that was rude.”
“‘Treat it like a proper sentence, but just with single quotation marks.’ Now how does that make sense? Single quotations! This teacher is nuts.”
The lady shrugged. “Well, as teacher says, ‘British style is different from American style.’ Just be consistent.”
“Sure, ‘American’ style. Why can’t we all just have one universal style?”
“My pets consists of a very old, but lovable cat; my ridiculously energetic dog; and a zebra.”
If we take out the descriptors, we can use commas: my pets consist of a cat, a dog, and a zebra.
The soldier could run twenty laps easily; however, the soldier was very old.
For two separate clauses that can be sentences by themselves, but probably shouldn’t be because this ain’t Clifford the Big Red Dog.
“Did you know we invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin? I’m saying it without the Oxford comma.”
“So that would mean you invited two strippers named JFK and Stalin?”
“Yeah. But if I add the comma between the two names and said that I invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin, it would mean something else entirely.”
Commas after introductory words:
“Finally, we’re getting to the good part; the ending.”
“You know, it’s not the end.”
“Grammar is a hell of a drug.”
