How to use a full stop????

Full stops – how to use them

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Definition

The full stop is a punctuation mark indicating a strong pause.
It is used most commonly at the end of a complete sentence – like this one.

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Examples

• This is a short sentence. This is another.
• It happened suddenly in 1996.
• There are two reasons for this (in my opinion).

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Use

The full stop is the strongest mark of punctuation. It is sometimes called the ‘period’.
The stop is also used following many abbreviations.
NB! A full stop is not necessary if the sentence ends with a question or an exclamation mark. Got that?
Full stops are commonly placed after abbreviations:

ibid. – No. 1 – ff. – e.g. – etc.

The stop is normally placed inside quotation marks but outside brackets:

“What joy we had that particular day.”
Profits declined (despite increased sales).

However, if the quotation is part of another statement, the full stop goes outside the quote marks:

Mrs Higginbottam whispered “They’re coming”.

If the parenthesis is a complete sentence, the full stop stays inside the
brackets:

There was an earthquake in Osaka. (Another had occurred in Tokyo the year previously.)

No full stop is required if a sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation, or a title or abbreviation which contains its own punctuation:

Is this question really necessary?
What a mess!
He is the editor of Which?
She gave her address as ‘The Manor, Wilts.’

Full stops are not required after titles, headings, or sub-headings:

The Turn of the Screw
Industrial Policy Report
Introduction

The stop is not necessary following common titles which are shortened forms of a word (technically, ‘contractions’):

Dr – [Doctor]
Mr – [Mister]
St – [Street]
Mme – [Madame]

Full stops are not necessary after the capital letters used as abbreviations for titles of organisations and countries:

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation
UNO – United Nations Organisation
USA – United States of America

They are not used where the initials of a standard work of reference are used as an abbreviated title:

OED – Oxford English Dictionary
DNB – Dictionary of National Biography
PMLA – Papers of the Modern Languages Association