All 23 Punctuation Marks & What They Do flashcards. Free.
The whole deck, not a sample — Punctuation Marks & What They Do is 23 cards, which is no longer than the 30 we give away on every deck, so there is nothing left to charge for. 11 pages, US Letter, black and white. Grades 4–10.
No account, no email, no card details.
11 pages, and the backs are already right
Every front sheet is followed by its own back sheet with the rows reversed. Print double-sided, flip on the long edge, and answer number 7 is behind question number 7. Print a deck you built yourself, flip on the short edge, and every answer lands on the wrong card — which nobody finds out until sixty cards have been cut apart.
- 23 cards — counted out of the file, not rounded up
- Eight cards a sheet, with cut guides
- US Letter PDF, black and white, photocopier-friendly
- Print a set per student, every class, every year
23 cards covering 19 common English punctuation marks — the apostrophe takes two, for possession and contraction — plus the three usage points (serial comma, single or double quotes, punctuation at a closing quote) where US and UK convention genuinely disagree.
Every card here is cited to two independent sources
Two different organisations — not a standards body and a website reprinting it — and a script refuses the card if the two disagree, so the check runs on every card rather than on the ones somebody remembered to look at. A second specialist then re-verified this deck from sources of their own, without reading our citations first. A further 5,420 cards across 30 other decks were read end to end by a subject specialist instead, and we say which is which on every deck rather than averaging the two into one flattering word.
What 23 printed cards do that a screen does not
A phone deck is one card at a time. A printed deck is a pile you can split: the ones you know, the ones you nearly know, and the ones you keep missing. That third pile is the entire study session, and it is the thing a scrolling app hides from you.
- Print once, use all year. The licence covers a set per student, every class, every year.
- No device, no login, no data. Works in a cover lesson, on a bus, or at a kitchen table. Grades 4–10, filed under english & reading.
- Change what you disagree with. Every card loads into the free maker on this site. Reword it, drop it, add your own, reprint.
Here are all 23 cards
Check them against your own textbook before you spend anything.
- . — the full stop (British) or period (American)
- Ends a statement, or an abbreviation: The tide turned.
- ? — the question mark
- Ends a direct question: Where is the ferry? Not used after an indirect question.
- ! — the exclamation mark (British) or exclamation point (American)
- Ends an exclamation or a forceful remark: What a match!
- , — the comma
- Separates items in a list or marks off an interruption: We packed bread, cheese and fruit.
- The serial or Oxford comma — the one before 'and' in a list
- Optional: Chicago (US books) keeps it; AP news style and most British style drop it.
- ; — the semicolon
- Joins two complete sentences too closely linked to separate: It rained; we stayed in.
- : — the colon
- Introduces what explains or lists what came before: We took three things: bread, cheese, fruit.
- ' — the apostrophe, showing possession
- Marks ownership: the dog's lead, the dogs' leads.
- ' — the apostrophe, showing a contraction
- Marks missing letters or figures: can't for cannot, '76 for 1776.
- “ ” or ‘ ’ — quotation marks (also called inverted commas in Britain)
- Enclose words quoted exactly: She said, 'Where is the ferry?'
- Single or double quotation marks — which pair is standard?
- US style: double. UK style: either — single is the older habit, double is now common too.
- A comma or full stop at a closing quotation mark — inside or outside?
- US style: always inside. British 'logical' style: inside only if it belongs to the quotation.
- - — the hyphen
- Joins word parts, with no space either side: well-known, twenty-one; also splits a word at a line end.
- – — the en dash
- Spans a range, meaning up to and including: pages 128–34, 6 a.m.–6 p.m.
- — — the em dash
- Sets off a strong break or interruption: The Serbs want peace — or so they say.
- ( ) — parentheses, also called round brackets
- Enclose an aside that could be lifted out: Thriplow (pronounced 'Triplow') is small.
- [ ] — square brackets
- Mark words you have added inside someone else's quotation: 'He [the captain] refused.'
- { } — braces, also called curly brackets
- Group items meant to be taken together, mostly in maths and computing.
- … — the ellipsis
- Shows words left out of a quotation, or a sentence left unfinished.
- / — the slash, also called the oblique or solidus
- Separates alternatives and divides parts of a web address: and/or, bbc.co.uk/news.
- * — the asterisk
- A reference mark: sends the reader to a matching footnote at the foot of the page.
- & — the ampersand
- Stands for the word and; keep it for names such as Marks & Spencer and write 'and' in prose.
- • — the bullet point
- Marks each item of a vertical list, introduced by a lead-in line.
Questions
- How do I print them double-sided?
- Double-sided, flip on the long edge. Every front sheet is followed by its own already-mirrored back sheet, so print them in the order they come and every answer lands on its own card.
- Can I edit the cards?
- Yes, and that is half the point. Once you own the deck, the "Buy & edit" button here opens all 23 cards in the free flash card maker on this site — reword a definition, delete the ones you do not teach, add your own, and print at anything from two to nine cards a page, rather than the fixed eight of the PDF.
- Can I print a set for every student?
- Yes. Personal and classroom licence: unlimited printing, every class you teach, every year you teach it. It does not cover reselling the file or passing it on to a colleague.
- What if I find a card that is wrong?
- Tell us and we fix it, and we publish what changed. We have withdrawn a whole deck from sale for being out of date rather than quietly patch it.
- Do I need an account?
- No. The file downloads straight away — no account, no email, no card details.