Here is a refresher on exclamation points, question marks, and semi-colons.
Exclamation points
Most style guidelines within the news industry recommend avoiding the exclamation point or severely limiting its use. Most editors feel that the exclamation mark risks your work reading like a marketing brochure vs. an unbiased piece of business news writing. If you can’t avoid placing the mark within your writing, adhere to the following AP guidelines:
Place the mark inside quotation marks when it is part of a quote.
“How amazing!” the board member exclaimed.
Otherwise place a mark outside the quotation marks.
The company’s annual report was longer than “Moby Dick”!
Do not insert a comma or a period after the exclamation mark.
“You’re wrong!” the irate shareholder shouted to the company’s chairman.
Question marks
Use a question mark for an inserted/interrupting (also known as an interpolated) question.
They said—am I understanding this properly?—to shut the facility down.
Don’t use a question mark at the end of an indirect question.
He asked who ordered the shut-down of the facility.
Also don’t use at the end of some rhetorical questions.
Why don’t we go.
Use a question mark without a comma when attributing a quotation.
“Why did the companies merge?” she asked.
Semi-colons
Use a semicolon to relate two closely related independent clauses—meaning, a complete sentence. Apply this rule when connecting ideas without any linking words, or with conjunctive adverbs such as moreover, therefore or otherwise.
North Carolina experienced record rain over Easter break; however, strawberry harvest remains bountiful, NC State officials say.
Use semicolons to separate a series when the items are long or when individual segments contain material that also must be set off by commas, per the AP Stylebook.
The company’s founder is survived by a son, John Smith, of Chicago; three daughters, Jane Smith, of Kansas, Mary Smith, of Denver, and Susan Smith, of Boston; and a sister, Lois Gilbert, of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Place semicolons outside quotation marks.
