Punctuation and Figures

When using direct speech, place commas and full stops inside quotation marks for complete sentences. Place the comma or period outside the quotation mark if only a partial quote is being used. E.g.:
"The exhibition will open on Friday," the spokesman said.
The exhibition would "open on Friday", the spokesman said.
The latter quote is a fragment. It begins in mid-sentence. The comma therefore goes outside the speech marks.

Nest punctuation so as to help the reader. In the same way, when a question mark applies to a whole passage, not just to the quoted portion, the question mark comes outside the quotation marks, e.g.: He told his supporters, "Why worry?" but Didn't he tell them, "Don't worry"?

Use a comma to introduce a full quote of one sentence. Use a colon to introduce full quotations longer than one sentence.

Prefer double quotes (") to two apostrophes (' ') for speech marks (see Typography.)

Omit any comma before the last item in a series ... red, white and blue. Omit second commas from dates and place descriptions, e.g.: ... a ruling on July 17, 1994 against ... (not "1994,") and ...landed in Rennes, France using a ... (not "France,"). When a phrase is in apposition, it does require two commas, e.g.: "Bill Clinton, who survived impeachment over his love affair with Monica Lewinsky leaves the White House for good next year ..." is wrong: a comma is required after Lewinsky.

Possessives of singular proper names ending in "s" take only an apostrophe, not an extra "s": ... Marcos' wealth, Dickens' novels.

Note the correct use of hyphens in 9-year-old girl (not "9-year old" or "9 year-old"). Up 6 per cent, but a 6-per-cent increase. More rules concerning hyphens are on the Spelling page (use in the "co-" prefix and in company names), the Capitalization page (vice president and secretary general), the Diplomatic page (treaty names), the Arabic Names page (prefixes) and the Cyber page (e-mail etc.).

Foreshadowing the rules on the Typography page: write a dash as follows: single space, single hyphen, single space ( - ). Where there are gaps in quotes, use an ellipsis ( ... ) composed of three dots with a letterspace before and after.

Do not begin a sentence with a numeral. Spell it out or recast the sentence.

Add the name of the country to a dateline if the town is not well known: ... Mannheim, Germany (dpa) - A train collided with ... For stories from the United Nations use a New York dateline: e.g. New York (dpa) - The United Nations Security Council went into emergency session Thursday ...

Avoid double datelines. Exceptions are possible in wars or armed confrontations when extensive source material comes from different countries.

Do not use the word "here" in the text of a story to refer back to the name in the dateline. Specify the name of the place you are referring to if it is different from that in the dateline.

Use the day of the week instead of "today", "yesterday" or "tomorrow" Don't use "last night" or "this morning".

Use a.m. and p.m. for local times with a GMT conversion when available. An online converter is listed on the Links page. Use the 24-hour clock for GMT ... In Bonn, it was 5 p.m. (1600 GMT). Don't say 5 p.m. "local time". For more time formats see Sport. Dates are written month - day - comma - four-digit year.

In headings, capitalize By, e.g. By Jeff Morgan, dpa. At the end of a take (and this effectively only applies for Sports Results), write More capitalized if another take is to follow.