What punctuation mark is used in numbers dates and letter writing after the salutation and closing?

By Jayne Thompson Updated July 01, 2018

When it comes to writing a business letter, you have two primary styles to choose from. The first, known as closed punctuation, requires the strict use of traditional punctuation, such as a colon after the salutation – Dear Sir: – in your business letter. This is the type of punctuation you likely learned in English class. Open punctuation is a much more relaxed way of writing. Choose this option, and you can give those pesky colons a miss.

In a nutshell, closed punctuation uses terminal punctuation marks, while open punctuation leaves them out. Terminal punctuation refers to the commas and colons you typically use at the end of phrases, such as the colon after the salutation and a comma after the complimentary close. With open punctuation, you simply leave these nonessential punctuation marks out.

It was a pleasure to meet you at the expo last week. As discussed, I sincerely believe that the sales support suite produced by Acme Corporation can greatly streamline your lead generation. If you are still interested in our services, I would like to meet with you at your offices next week to walk you through a demo and discuss the best plan to suit your needs.

Would 2pm on Friday work for you?

You'll write an open-punctuation letter using the full-block style. In this style, you'll write your own address at the top of the page, unless you're using letterhead. The recipient's name and address appears in the inside address block in the usual way, but there are no commas after each line of the address. There's no indentation in the salutation, closing or paragraphs of the letter; rather, all your text should be justified to the left margin.

Vega Realty123 Any StreetAnytown NC 12345

(123) 456-7890

Mr A. Biggin123 Wellington Street

Anytown NC 12345

Body of letter goes here.

It may seem counterintuitive to talk about the "rules" of open punctuation when the underlying theme is leaving out superfluous punctuation. Nonetheless, there are some rules to follow, and your letter will be more professional if you are consistent in your use of the open style. As well as not using punctuation after the salutation and at the end of the address lines, open punctuation:

Omits periods in dates and times of day –

"July 4 2018", "pm"
* Omits periods and commas when using names, credentials and acronyms

–

"PO Box", "TD Roberts PhD"
* Omits punctuation following enclosures, carbon copies and so on

–

"Enc", "cc" * Avoids Oxford commas, that is, the comma used after the penultimate item in a list unless it is necessary for meaning within the sentence.

Open punctuation is a relatively new concept in business writing, but it is fast becoming the norm. The main thrust is technology – both Microsoft and Google offer a suite of business letter templates that increasingly are laid out in the open style. This means you can use open punctuation in almost all your business correspondence. The main exception is in the field of academic writing, where the closed style of punctuation is preferred. If you're responding to a letter that has been written in a closed style, it is polite to respond in that style until you establish that an open style is acceptable.

Letters require very little punctuation, apart from whatever is needed for independent reasons. The address on the envelope looks like this:

Joanna Barker 54 Cedar Grove Brighton BN1 7ZR

There is no punctuation at all here. Note especially that the number 54 is not followed by a comma. In Britain, it was formerly common practice to put a comma in this position, but such commas are pointless and are no longer usual.

The same goes for the two addresses in the letter itself: your own address (the return address), usually placed in the top right-hand corner, and the recipient's address (the internal address), usually placed at the left-hand margin, below the return address:

168 Trent Avenue Newark NG6 7TJ

17 March 1995

Joanna Barker 54 Cedar Grove Brighton BN1 7ZR

Note the position of the date, and note that the date requires no punctuation.

In British English, the greeting is always followed by a comma:

Dear Esther, or Dear Mr Jackson,

In American usage, only a personal letter takes a comma here, while a business letter takes a colon:

Dear Esther, but Dear Mr. Jackson:

If you are writing to a firm or an institution, and you have no name, you may use the greeting Dear Sir/Madam.

The closing always takes a comma:

Yours lovingly, or Yours faithfully,

Note that only the first word of the closing is capitalized. In British usage, it is traditional to close with Yours sincerely when writing to a named person but Yours faithfully when using the Dear Sir/Madam greeting, but this distinction is anything but crucial. American usage prefers Yours sincerely or Sincerely yours (A) for all business letters. Things like Yours exasperatedly are only appropriate, if at all, in letters to newspapers.

In a personal letter, of course, you can use any closing you like: Yours lovingly, Looking forward to seeing you, It's not much fun without you, or whatever.

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There are 14 punctuation marks that are commonly used in English grammar. They are the period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, hyphen, parentheses, brackets, braces, apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipsis. Following their correct usage will make your writing easier to read and more appealing.

period, question mark, and exclamation mark as punctuation examples

Three of the fourteen punctuation marks are appropriate for use as sentence endings. They are the period, question mark, and exclamation point.

The period (.) is placed at the end of declarative sentences, statements thought to be complete and after many abbreviations.

As a sentence ender: Jane and Jack went to the market.
After an abbreviation: Her son, John Jones Jr., was born on Dec. 6, 2008.

Use a question mark (?) to indicate a direct question when placed at the end of a sentence.

When did Jane leave for the market?

The exclamation point (!) is used when a person wants to express a sudden outcry or add emphasis.

Within dialogue: "Holy cow!" screamed Jane.
To emphasize a point: My mother-in-law's rants make me furious!

The comma, semicolon, and colon are often misused because they all can indicate a pause in a series.

The comma is used to show a separation of ideas or elements within the structure of a sentence. Additionally, it is used in numbers, dates, and letter writing after the salutation and closing.

Direct address: Thanks for all your help, John.
Separation of two complete sentences: We went to the movies, and then we went out to lunch.
Separating lists or elements within sentences: Suzi wanted the black, green, and blue dress.

Whether to add a final comma before the conjunction in a list is a matter of debate. This final comma, known as an Oxford or serial comma, is useful in a complex series of elements or phrases but is often considered unnecessary in a simple series such as in the example above. It usually comes down to a style choice by the writer.

The semicolon (;) is used to connect independent clauses. It shows a closer relationship between the clauses than a period would show.

John was hurt; he knew she only said it to upset him.

A colon (:) has three main uses. The first is after a word introducing a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a series.

He was planning to study four subjects: politics, philosophy, sociology, and economics.

The second is between independent clauses when the second explains the first, similar to a semicolon:

I didn't have time to get changed: I was already late.

The third use of a colon is for emphasis:

There was one thing she loved more than any other: her dog.

A colon also has non-grammatical uses in time, ratio, business correspondence and references.

Two other common punctuation marks are the dash and hyphen. These marks are often confused with each other due to their appearance but they are very different.

A dash is used to separate words into statements. There are two common types of dashes: en dash and em dash.

En dash: Twice as long as a hyphen, the en dash is a symbol (–) that is used in writing or printing to indicate a range, connections or differentiations, such as 1880-1945 or Princeton-New York trains.
Em dash: Longer than the en dash, the em dash can be used in place of a comma, parenthesis, or colon to enhance readability or emphasize the conclusion of a sentence. For example, She gave him her answer — No!
Whether you put spaces around the em dash or not is a style choice. Just be consistent.

A hyphen is used to join two or more words together into a compound term and is not separated by spaces. For example, part-time, back-to-back, well-known.

Brackets, braces, and parentheses are symbols used to contain words that are a further explanation or are considered a group.

Brackets are the squared off notations ([]) used for technical explanations or to clarify meaning. If you remove the information in the brackets, the sentence will still make sense.

He [Mr. Jones] was the last person seen at the house.

Braces ({}) are used to contain two or more lines of text or listed items to show that they are considered as a unit. They are not commonplace in most writing but can be seen in computer programming to show what should be contained within the same lines. They can also be used in mathematical expressions. For example, 2{1+[23-3]}=x.

Parentheses ( () ) are curved notations used to contain further thoughts or qualifying remarks. However, parentheses can be replaced by commas without changing the meaning in most cases.

John and Jane (who were actually half brother and sister) both have red hair.

The final three punctuation forms in English grammar are the apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipsis. Unlike previously mentioned grammatical marks, they are not related to one another in any form.

An apostrophe (') is used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters from a word, the possessive case, or the plurals of lowercase letters. Examples of the apostrophe in use include:

Omission of letters from a word: I've seen that movie several times. She wasn't the only one who knew the answer.
Possessive case: Sara's dog bit the neighbor.
Plural for lowercase letters: Six people were told to mind their p's and q's.

It should be noted that, according to Purdue University, some teachers and editors enlarge the scope of the use of apostrophes, and prefer their use on symbols (&'s), numbers (7's) and capitalized letters (Q&A's), even though they are not necessary.

Quotations marks (" ") are a pair of punctuation marks used primarily to mark the beginning and end of a passage attributed to another and repeated word for word. They are also used to indicate meanings and to indicate the unusual or dubious status of a word.

"Don't go outside," she said.

Single quotation marks (' ') are used most frequently for quotes within quotes.

Marie told the teacher, "I saw Marc at the playground, and he said to me 'Bill started the fight,' and I believed him."

The ellipsis is most commonly represented by three periods (. . . ) although it is occasionally demonstrated with three asterisks (***). The ellipsis is used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words. Ellipses are frequently used within quotations to jump from one phrase to another, omitting unnecessary words that do not interfere with the meaning. Students writing research papers or newspapers quoting parts of speeches will often employ ellipsis to avoid copying lengthy text that is not needed.

Omission of words: She began to count, "One, two, three, four…" until she got to 10, then went to find him.
Within a quotation: When Newton stated, "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion..." he developed the law of motion.

There are a few differences between punctuation in British and American English. The following charts details some of those differences:

	British English	American English
The " . " symbol is called	A full stop	a period
The " ! " symbol is called	an exclamation mark	an exclamation point
The " ( ) " symbols are called	brackets	parentheses
The " [ ] " symbols are called	square brackets	brackets
The position of quotation marks	Joy means "happiness".	Joy means "happiness."
The punctuation for abbreviations	Dr, Mr, Mrs, St, Rd, Ct	Dr., Mr., Mrs., St., Rd., Ct.

Becoming familiar with the basic punctuation marks in the English language will allow you to express yourself better in your writing. Punctuation marks will also make your sentences clearer and more understandable to the reader.

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