What are full stops and commas?

Full stops and commas are punctuation marks. A full stop ends a sentence. A comma shows a pause, breaks up a list or separates part of a sentence.

Full stops

Full stops always go at the end of a sentence:

• 'I love tennis.'
• 'I love rugby.'
• 'I love lots of other sports.'

Sentences

Full stops can be used to create different sentence lengths and types. These can can have different effects on the the reader.

• Longer sentences may be used for a more detailed description or an explanation.
• Shorter sentences may be used to have impact, reflect the point that is being made or build up tension: 'She stopped suddenly.'

Fragments

Sometimes writers don't even use full sentences. Sentence fragments often help to emphasise a point, create drama or show surprise, but they are not complete sentences:

• 'She looked as carefully as she could, but found nothing. Absolutely nothing.'
• 'Imagine this. You're trapped. It's dark. It's cold.'

Try to consider how you can add impact to your own writing by using different sentence lengths and types.

Commas can be used to:

• create a list
• show a pause
• break up a long sentence into smaller chunks

Lists

Lists can connect lots of related items or topics using commas: 'I love tennis, rugby and lots of other sports.'

If a list is present, look at the order in which the points are listed. If they lead up to the most important item at the end, there is a build-up to a climax: 'Jessica wanted to pass her exams, go to University and become a doctor.'

Pauses

Be careful! Commas can completely changed the meaning of a sentence.

• 'Let's eat, Lucy.' means you are inviting Lucy to eat.
• 'Let's eat Lucy.' means you are about to eat Lucy!

If you're not sure where to put a comma, try reading the sentence out loud. A comma is often where you would pause for a breath before continuing.

Breaking up longer sentences

In a long sentence, you can use commas to separate out extra information and make the sentence easier to read.

A clause is the building block for a sentence. Commas can be used to break up sentences that have more than one clause and make them easier to read.

• 'When Josh saw the food, his stomach started to grumble.'
• 'Josh used to stay up late playing video games, but then his mum found out.'

Both these sentences have a subordinate clause. Subordinate clauses do not make sense on their own. These clauses need the main part of the sentence to make sense, so they are connected with a comma. The comma shows that they are closely connected to the main part of the sentence.