Webster's New World Punctuation
Chapter One
The Period
What Americans call a "period" is named "full point" or
"full stop" in Britain. The second British term gives a good
idea of the period's main function. Like the red sign at the
end of a road, a period orders the reader not just to slow
down briefly but to come to a true halt. Probably the only
sign in a piece of writing that makes a sharper separation
between one idea and another is the blankness at the end of
a line preceding a new paragraph or the unfilled page at the
end of a chapter.
The period's primary function is to signal the end of any
sentence that makes a statement or gives a command. Periods
also appear in most abbreviations. In recent years this punctuation
mark has picked up a new and important function as
part of Web addresses.
Though the rules governing the period are fairly straightforward,
problems do arise when a period at the end of a sentence
tangles with the period of an abbreviation or with
quotation marks. This chapter addresses those intricacies and
other special cases, including the use of a period in titles, lists,
and slide presentations.
AS AN ENDMARK
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