Nirma University

Institute of Law
English-I (Communication)
Session-9 Punctuation Worksheet

I. Insert Comma (,) at the right place and rewrite the following: 6 Uses

Use a comma when you join two independent clauses with a coordinating
conjunction (such as and, but, or, nor, yet, or so).

1. The United States is a common-law country, and its judges are common-law judges.
2. About a dozen lawyers were in the room together, and the discussion was complete and
candid.
Use a comma after a transitional word or phrase (though not And or But), an
introductory phrase (especially a long one), or a subordinate clause that precedes
an independent clause.
3. Significantly, Moore has not filed a cross-appeal.
4. In the second Reynolds appeal, the majority opinion pointed out that experts frequently
rely on comparable sales when appraising the value of property.
5. When the court addresses the question of ambiguity, it must focus on the contractual
language itself.
Use a pair of commas to mark the beginning and end of a nonrestrictive phrase
or clause—that is, either an appositive or a phrase or clause that gives incidental
or descriptive information that isn’t essential to the meaning of the sentence.

6. A police officer, who is trained to overcome resistance, is likely to escalate force until
the arrestee cannot escape without using deadly force. (Nonrestrictive clause.)
7. Another authority, the court, has picked up some of the slack. (Nonrestrictive
appositive.)
8. The right allegedly violated in this case, freedom of speech as protected by the First
Amendment, is one of our most fundamental constitutional rights. (Nonrestrictive
appositive.)
Use a comma to separate items in a series—including the last and next to-last.

9. The term “reasonable doubt” is not designed to encompass vain, imaginary, or fanciful
doubts.

Punctuation Worksheet | Dr. Mamta Pillai | ILNU

 10. Jackson alleges that the October 2000 reassignment letter, the gag order, and the
banishment order were implemented without affording her procedural due process.
11. The scientific method has proved extraordinarily useful in matters involving radar,
ballistics, handwriting, typewriting intoxication, and paternity.
Use a comma to separate adjectives that each qualify a noun in parallel fashion.
Use a comma to distinguish indirect from direct speech
12. That is a simplistic, fallacious conclusion.
13. Routine, hasty processing of criminal cases did not begin with plea bargaining at all.
14. Justice George ended by saying “The decision is an act not of judicial judgment, but of
political will.”
15. “Today, social workers provide a significant amount of mental-health treatment” wrote
Justice Stevens.

II. Insert a Semi-colon (;) at the right place and rewrite the following: 2 Uses
Use a semicolon to unite two short, closely connected sentences
When the items are broken into subparagraphs.
1. One side must make an offer; the other side must accept it.

2. A person who has been wronged often wants to win a fight; the sublimated
courtroom fight may furnish the means of relief.

3. To establish causation and intention in emotional-distress cases, the plaintiff is

generally required to show that:
a. the plaintiff was present when the injury occurred to the other person;
b. the plaintiff was a close relative of the injured person;
c. and the defendant knew that the plaintiff was present and was a close relative
of the injured person.
III. Insert a Colon (:) at the right place and rewrite the following: 3 Uses
Use a colon to link two separate clauses or phrases when you need to indicate a
step forward from the first to the second—as when the second part explains the
first part or provides an example.
Use a colon after the salutation in correspondence

1. After two hours they reconciled: the chef apologized, and the owner rehired him
with a $10 raise.

2. Each conspirator may be liable for the crimes of all other conspirators if two
conditions are satisfied: (1) if the crimes were committed in furtherance of the

Punctuation Worksheet | Dr. Mamta Pillai | ILNU

 conspiracy’s objectives; and (2) if the crimes were a natural and probable
consequence of the conspiracy.

3. A trademark can be seen as an advertising idea: it is a way of marking goods so that

they will be identified with a particular source.

4. Dear Susan George,

IV. Insert Parentheses ( ) where applicable and rewrite the following: 3 Uses

Use parentheses to set off an inserted phrase, clause, or sentence that you want to
minimize.
Use parentheses to introduce shorthand names.
Use parentheses around numbers or letters when you’re listing items in text.

1. If we increase the punishment, some people (not everybody) will stop doing the deed
from fear of punishment.
2. Once a child is born alive (assuming that the wife does not die in childbirth) the
husband’s shared freehold is converted into a life estate in his own right in his wife’s
freeholds.
3. In the Controlled Question Technique (“CQT”), the test method that polygraph
examiners use most often, an examiner asks three types of questions: neutral, control,
and relevant.
4. This Court has reviewed orders not specified in the notice of appeal when (1) there is
a connection between the specified order and unspecified order, and (2) the intention
to appeal the unspecified part is apparent.

V. Use a Pair of Long dash ___ ___ in the following sentences: (2 Uses)
Use a pair of em-dashes to set off an inserted phrase that, because of what it
modifies, needs to go in the middle of a sentence.
Use a pair of em-dashes to set off a parenthetical phrase that you want to
highlight.

1. The plaintiffs here ___ two young children and their parents ___ have sued the city
for violations of their constitutional rights.
2. The majority ___ as Justice Susan George pointed out in his dissent ___ brushed aside
evidence of subhuman work condition

VI. Use a pair of Short dash _ _ in the following sentences: (1 Use)

when showing a span of pages, to express tension or difference, or to denote a
pairing in which the elements carry equal weight.

1. 233–34
2. love–hate relationship

Punctuation Worksheet | Dr. Mamta Pillai | ILNU

 3. contract–tort doctrines

VII. Use Hyphen - where it is applicable in the following sentences: (2 Uses)

to connect the parts of a phrasal adjective.
when spelling out fractions.

1. First-year law students are sometimes unready for their end of the year doldrums.
2. The court applied the common-law mirror-image rule.
3. One-third of the punitive damages were eliminated by remittitur.

VIII. Use Quotation Marks “ ” and rewrite the following sentences: (2 Uses)
Use quotation marks when you mean “so-called” or “self-styled,” or even “so-
called-but-not-really.”
Use single quotation marks for quoted words within quotations.

1. Certain forms of expression have been described as “illusory promises.”

2. Ryan, a “cable troubleshooter,” questioned Vyom about the message.
3. In that case, the plaintiff saw the driver coming and attempted to flee, but he was
unable to get out because “the door to the booth was ‘jammed and stuck,’ trapping
the plaintiff inside.”
periods and commas go inside, colons and semicolons go outside, question marks
and exclamation points go either inside or outside

IX. Use Ellipsis (…) and rewrite the following sentences. (2 Uses)

When you’ve omitted something from within a sentence.

Use four dots—three ellipsis dots plus a period—when you’ve omitted something
at the end of a sentence. (A space goes before the first dot.)

1. “Statutes in most states… require the landlord to put the tenant in actual
possession of the premises at the beginning of the leasehold term.”
2. “An arrest is neither a conviction of a crime nor even a final formal charge of a
crime ….”

X. Understand the Use of Brackets : (3 Uses)

to enclose an editorial comment, correction, explanation, interpolation,
substitution, or translation that was not in the original text.
Use a pair of brackets around any character that you change in or add to quoted
material.
Use a pair of empty brackets to show the deletion of part of a word.

Punctuation Worksheet | Dr. Mamta Pillai | ILNU

 1. “The action arose ex delicto [in tort], not ex contractu [from a contract].”
2. The search-warrant requirement arose from the Founders’ understanding that
“[p]ower is a heady thing, and history shows that the police acting on their own
cannot be trusted.”
3. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that an essential function of the warrant is
to “assure[ ] the individual whose property is searched or seized of the lawful
authority of the executing officer, his need to search, and the limits of his power to
search.”

Punctuation Worksheet | Dr. Mamta Pillai | ILNU