Back to Home Page

NASA SP-7084

Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization

A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors

Mary K. McCaskill Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia

Contents
Preface	iii
1. Grammar	1
1.1. Grammar and Effective Writing	1
1.2. Nouns	1
1.2.1. Possessive Case	2
1.2.2. Possessive of Inanimate Objects	2
1.3. Pronouns	3
1.3.1. Antecedents	3
1.3.2. Personal Pronouns	4
1.3.3. Relative Pronouns	5
1.3.4. Demonstrative Pronouns	7
1.4. Verbs	8
1.4.1. Tense	8
1.4.2. Mood	10
1.4.3. Voice	10
1.4.4. Verb Number	11
1.5. Adjectives	12
1.5.1. Articles	13
1.5.2. Unit Modifiers	14
1.6. Adverbs	16
1.6.1. Misplaced Adverbs	16
1.6.2. Squinting Adverbs	17
1.6.3. Split Infinitives	17
1.7. Prepositions	17
1.7.1. Prepositional Idioms	18
1.7.2. Terminal Prepositions	18
1.7.3. Repeating Prepositions	18
1.8. Conjunctions	19
1.8.1. Coordinating Conjunctions	19
1.8.2. Subordinating Conjunction	20
1.9. Verbals	22
1.9.1. Coordinate Gerunds and Infinitives	22
1.9.2. Idiom Requiring Gerund or Infinitive	22
1.9.3. Dangling Verbals	23
Back to Top
2. Sentence Structure	27
2.1. Sentence Structure and Effective Writing	27
2.2. Subjects and Verbs	27
2.2.1. Clarify Subject	27
2.2.2. Make Verbs Vigorous	29
2.2.3. Improve Subject-Verb Relationship	31
2.3. Parallelism	33
2.3.1. Connectives Requiring Parallelism	33
2.3.2. Itemization	34
2.4. Brevity and Conciseness	35
2.4.1. Wordiness	35
2.4.2. Shortening Text	37
2.4.3. Shortening Titles	37
2.5. Comparisons	39
2.5.1. Comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs	39
2.5.2. Ambiguous Comparisons	40
2.5.3. Comparison Constructions	41
2.6. Emphasis	43
2.6.1. Emphasizing With Sentence Structure	43
2.6.2. Emphasizing With Punctuation	45
Back to Top
3. Punctuation	47
3.1. A Functional Concept of Punctuation	47
3.2. Apostrophe	47
3.3. Brackets	48
3.4. Colon	48
3.4.1. Colons That Introduce	48
3.4.2. Conventional Uses of the Colon	51
3.4.3. Use With Other Marks	51
3.5. Comma	51
3.5.1. Commas That Separate	51
3.5.2. Commas That Enclose	56
3.5.3. Conventional Uses of the Comma	59
3.5.4. Use With Other Marks	60
3.6. Em Dash	60
3.6.1. Dashes That Enclose	61
3.6.2. Dashes That Separate	62
3.6.3. Conventional Uses of the Dash	63
3.6.4. Use With Other Marks	63
3.7. En Dash	63
3.8. Hyphen	64
3.8.1. Word Division	64
3.8.2. Prefixes	64
3.8.3. Suffixes	65
3.8.4. Compound Words	65
3.9. Italics	67
3.9.1. Italics for Emphasis	67
3.9.2. Italics for Special Terminology	68
3.9.3. Italics for Differentiation	68
3.9.4. Italics for Symbology	69
3.9.5. Conventional Uses for Italics	69
3.9.6. Italics With Typefaces Other Than Roman	70
3.9.7. Italics With Punctuation	70
3.10. Parentheses	70
3.11. Period	71
3.11.1. Abbreviations	72
3.11.2. Conventional Uses of the Period	72
3.11.3. Use With Other Marks	73
3.12. Points of Ellipsis	73
3.13. Question Mark	74
3.14. Quotation Marks	75
3.14.1. Quoted Material	75
3.14.2. Words Requiring Differentiation	76
3.14.3. Use With Other Marks	77
3.15. Semicolon	77
3.15.1. Coordinate Clauses	77
3.15.2. Series	78
3.15.3. Explanatory Phrases and Clauses	79
3.15.4. Elliptical Constructions	79
3.15.5. Use With Other Marks	79
3.16. Slash	80
Back to Top
4. Capitalization	81
4.1. Introduction	81
4.2. Sentence Style Capitalization	81
4.2.1. Sentences	82
4.2.2. Quotations	82
4.2.3. Questions	83
4.2.4. Lists	83
4.2.5. Stylistic Uses for Sentence Style Capitalization	84
4.3. Headline Style Capitalization	84
4.4. Acronyms and Abbreviations	85
4.4.1. Capitalization With Acronyms	86
4.4.2. Capitalization of Abbreviations	86
4.5. Proper Nouns and Adjectives	86
4.5.1. Personal Names and Titles	88
4.5.2. Geographic Names	89
4.5.3. Administrative Names	90
4.5.4. Names of Public Places and Institutions	91
4.5.5. Calendar and Time Designations	91
4.5.6. Scientific Names	92
4.5.7. Titles of Works	93
4.5.8. Miscellaneous Names	94
References	95
Glossary	97
Index	101

Back to Home Page

Back to Top

Next Section