Punctuation

Danes shed blood, sweat and tears learning how to apply the grammatical comma. Please try to forget what you have learnt when writing English.
In English, commas generally reflect pauses in speech.

Danish commas to avoid

Relative clauses with 'that'. 

Avoid putting a comma before a clause beginning with ‘that’:

Restrictive relative clauses

Don’t put commas around defining (restrictive) relative clauses.

A restrictive relative clause provides essential information about the noun it refers to. If you leave it out, the sentence won’t make much sense. A non-restrictive relative clause can be removed from the sentence without changing its essential meaning. (If you need an explanation of what a relative clause is, see this Oxford Dictionaries article on relative clauses.)

Commas in lists

Don’t place commas before the final ‘and’ or ‘or’ in lists unless the meaning is ambiguous.

After ‘e.g.’ and ‘i.e.’

Don’t place commas after ‘e.g.’ and ‘i.e.’ (See Abbreviations below for more points on Latin abbreviations.) 

Commas after introductory elements

Use a comma after introductory elements, adverbial clauses, prepositional phrases and participial phrases.

As a rule, you should not allow a brief introductory element to merge with something following it in a way that might confuse your reader.

Hyphenation is being used less in compound words and is optional in many cases. Whether you choose to hyphenate a word or not, please be consistent (in other words, don’t write ‘trouble-shooting’ in one paragraph and ‘troubleshooting’ in the next). Your spellchecker may have its own ideas about hyphenation.

Examples

Coordinate, microeconomic, sociopolitical, subdivide, troubleshooting
Co-ordinate, micro-economic, socio-political, sub-divide, trouble-shooting

Danish hyphens

Many (if not most) Danish hyphenated forms do not take a hyphen in English. If you are a native speaker of Danish writing in English, be sure and check your English text for hyphenated forms and look them up to make sure that they actually exist.

Dates

Only hyphenate dates when you’re using them as adjectives.

Word division

Avoid dividing words at the end of the line wherever possible. You can choose to have Word avoid hyphens or hyphenate documents automatically. Choosing ‘no hyphenation’ is often the best option.

If you do choose to hyphenate your document, make sure you’ve selected the appropriate language settings in whatever program you’re using. Find out about hyphenation settings in Microsoft Office.

When using hyphens to divide words at the end of the line:

• Divide only between syllables. Consult the Merriam Webster online dictionary when in doubt about syllabification.
• Do not divide one-syllable words or very short words.
• Do not divide at the end of the last full line of a paragraph.
• Do not divide a word that will be continued on the next page or in the next column.
• Proper names consisting of more than one element should be divided between the elements rather than within any of the elements wherever possible.

There are two types of dashes worth worrying about:

• en dashes (den korte tankestreg) (­­–)
• em dashes (den lange tankestreg) (—)

There are broad national differences in dash conventions, and many publications have developed their own house rules. Something about dashes brings out the picky Per Nittengryn in many writers. At AU, our passions lie elsewhere, so we tend to simply follow the suggestions provided by AutoCorrect in the British English version of Word. When writing for non-AU publications, other conventions may apply. Whatever convention you are following, be consistent.

If you are using the right version of Word (UK English), you will use spaced en dashes in the following contexts:

Parenthetical comments

Use spaced en dashes for parenthetical comments. US English uses unspaced em dashes in these situations.

If your language settings are correct, Word automatically converts hyphens to en dashes when you type space – hyphen – space – ‘xxxxx’. If for some reason you need to insert an en dash somewhere else in your text, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + - (minus sign).

Instead of colons, semi-colons and brackets

Use unspaced en dashes to replace colons, semi-colons or brackets in running text. If your language settings are correct, Word automatically converts hyphens to en dashes when you type space – hyphen – space – ‘xxxxx’.

Note: Dashes are especially common in informal writing in English. In more formal contexts, use parentheses, colons and semi-colons. See Swan on the uses of colons (section 454) and semi-colons (section 459).

Single and double inverted commas are not interchangeable. There are rules governing their use, and it’s important to apply them consistently.

In AU texts, we use double inverted commas to mark the beginning and end of direct speech. We use single inverted commas

• to indicate that a term or phrase is being used as an example,
• to indicate that the writer wants to distance himself from the term in some way (scare quotes)
• to mark off a quotation within a quotation. 

 Punctuating speech

Use double inverted commas at the beginning and end of a quotation. Use single inverted commas for quoted words within the main quotation.

Many buckets of ink have been spilled on the question of whether commas and full stops should be placed before or after quotation marks. Follow The Guardian's rules and you won’t go far wrong. 

If you are quoting a full  sentence, place commas and full stops inside the quotes.

If you are quoting a fragment of a sentence, place commas and full stops outside the quotes.

In articles and press releases, use colons to introduce quotes, not commas.

Long quotations (block quotations) should be single-spaced and indented.

Do not combine double inverted commas with this formatting, or apply a different font, size or colour from the main body of your text.

• Use block quotations for quotes of eight lines or more.
• Start on a new line.
• Indent entire quote to same position as a new paragraph.
• Single space the block quote.

Scare quotes and examples

Use single inverted commas to set off words from the rest of the text in an ironic or distancing way (so-called ‘scare quotes’), or if the phrase or sentence you’re introducing is an example or instance of something you’re trying to explain.

Plural vs. possession

In Danish, we use apostrophes when adding plural endings to an abbreviation or number: flere PhD’er, postdoc’er, 1960’erne, PC’er

In English, no apostrophe should be used before the plural ending of abbreviations, names, numbers, letters and words, even before words that are not normally written in the plural. Use apostrophe -s  to indicate possession (genitive).

Plurals

Genitives

Possessives of words ending in –s

If you need to form a plural of a word that already ends in -s or -z, add an apostrophe or rearrange the sentence.

Don’t use full stops after contractions (abbreviations in which the first and last letters of the word are present), for example in abbreviations of academic degrees, titles and street names.

Academic degrees and titles

Street

Use full stops with the following kinds of abbreviations:

People’s names

Latin abbreviations

Start the first word of each bullet point with a capital letter.

The following criteria will be applied:

• Relevance
• Quality
• Price

Don’t put full stops in simple lists of items with bullet points.

Subjects offered by the department:

• English
• Spanish
• French

If each bullet point is a full sentence, end each bullet point with a full stop.

The department’s goals are as follows:

• We will increase admissions by 30 per cent.
• We will improve the quality of our study environment by 30 per cent.
• We will strengthen our contacts with potential employers by 30 per cent.

Otherwise, no full stops:

The department’s goals are:

• Increased admissions
• Improved study environment
• Closer cooperation with potential employers