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Full stops – definition
Full stops are punctuation marks indicating a strong pause.
Full stops are used most commonly at the end of complete sentences – like this one.
Examples
- This is a short sentence. This is another.
- It happened suddenly in 1996.
- There are two reasons for this (in my opinion).
Use
The full stop is the strongest mark of punctuation. It is sometimes called the ‘period’.
The stop is also used following many abbreviations.
NB! A full stop is not necessary if the sentence ends with a question or an exclamation mark. Got that?
Full stops are commonly placed after abbreviations:
ibid. – No. 1 – ff. – e.g. – etc.
The stop is normally placed inside quotation marks but outside brackets:
“What joy we had that particular day.”
Profits declined (despite increased sales).
However, if the quotation is part of another statement, the full stop goes outside the quote marks:
Mrs Higginbottam whispered “They’re coming”.
If the parenthesis is a complete sentence, the full stop stays inside the brackets:
There was an earthquake in Osaka. (Another had occurred in Tokyo the year previously.)
No full stop is required if a sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation, or a title or abbreviation which contains its own punctuation:
Is this question really necessary?
What a mess!
He is the editor of Which?
She gave her address as ‘The Manor, Wilts.’
Full stops are not required after titles, headings, or sub-headings:
The Turn of the Screw
Industrial Policy Report
Introduction
The stop is not necessary following common titles which are shortened forms of a word (technically, ‘contractions’):
Dr – [Doctor]
Mr – [Mister]
St – [Street]
Mme – [Madame]
Full stops are not necessary after the capital letters used as abbreviations for titles of organisations and countries:
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation
UNO – United Nations Organisation
USA – United States of America
They are not used where the initials of a standard work of reference are used as an abbreviated title:
OED – Oxford English Dictionary
DNB – Dictionary of National Biography
PMLA – Papers of the Modern Languages Association
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© Roy Johnson 2003
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I am 13 and I want to find 5 rules on full stops
All the rules you need are here at the Wikipedia entry – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop
What about following a capital standing for a middle name? Should it be “John B Smith”, or “John B. Smith”?
The standard convention is to use a full stop after the capital letter – John B. Smith – as in E.M. Forster and D.H. Lawrence
N/A is an abbreviation but if written in length, ie Not Applicable – does this have a full stop or not when used as a short sentence?
This most commonly occurs when filling in forms. No full stop is necessary – because it doesn’t really constitute a complete ‘sentence’.
I’ve noticed the use of ‘Full-Stop’ (period) in the use of UK-English. I am an American, and we use the period at the end of the abbreviations of titles: Mr. Mrs. Dr., Ph.D, etc. I don’t know how they are used with other English languages: Indian, Canadian, Australian, etc. I imagine they have their own rules. I suppose, in the future, US-English will follow the UK-English,since English is the mother language, and of course for simplicity. I’ve also noticed American literature, when published in the UK, has been modified to UK-English.
A period (full stop) to denote an abbreviation – as in Mr., Dr. and eg. – used to be the convention in UK-English, but it is gradually disappearing. On the ‘translation’ of books between UK and US English, I’m fairly sure the modification works the other way round too. ‘Lift’ will become ‘elevator’ and ‘pavement’ will become ‘sidewalk’.
Thanks for letting me know. I was in a big confusion whether to use fullstop before or after the brackets (and know I know).