Well, of course, it's boring. But the careful use of punctuation can make your writing clearer, more understandable. You want? to, be, clear don't -- you!?

There are hundreds of "rules" about punctuation. In fact, only some of those rules are mandatory, absolutely required for clarity; others are merely guidelines, left open to the writer's discretion. The main thing is: Use common sense.

For example: Think of your writing as a story you are telling your friends, and consider punctuation marks the pauses in your story. The period is a full, dead stop. You pause and take a couple of breaths. The comma is the slightest pause, just half a breath and you're off and running again. The semicolon is somewhere in between.

Some of the most useful common-sense thoughts (in alphabetical order):

APOSTROPHE
The apostrophe (') is used to indicate the possessive form. The general guideline is to add 's to make a noun possessive. My uncle's house. The cat's food. It is common these days to also add 's to common nouns ending in "s" -- my boss's cup, the lass's cat -- but to add only the apostrophe after a proper noun ending in "s": Thomas' car, James' vest.

The apostrophe is also used in plurals of numbers and letters (mostly as a visual aid for readers, not because of grammatical dictates): My poker hand of three 10's and two 5's looked unbeatable. Ginny won the praise of her parents for earning two A's and three B's.

COLON
The colon comes at the end of a sentence when you are almost, but not quite, ready to end it. It's a way of saying for example or this is what I mean. "The mayor has two choices: to cut spending or reduce taxes." "Most of us define our futures by trying to answer one question: How do I live my life?"

After the colon: Capitalize the first word after the colon if what follows is a complete statement (can stand alone as a sentence). Otherwise, leave it lowercase.

COMMA
The No. 1 fault to avoid is the comma splice. This is separating what should be two sentences or independent clauses by a comma instead of a period or a semicolon. "My wallet is empty, I need more money" instead of "My wallet is empty. I need more money" or "My wallet is empty; I need more money." A small pause when a bigger one is called for.

Other comma considerations:

1. Be sure the comma helps you say what you intend to say. In "The Careful Writer," Theodore Bernstein provides this example: "What's the latest dope?" or "What's the latest, dope?"

2. Use no comma with a restrictive term (one that is essential to the noun it modifies because it defines it). But do use commas to set off nonrestrictive terms, the ones the sentence could do without. In the sentence "John threw the stick to his dog, Fido" the term Fido is not essential to the sentence and is set off by a comma. In the sentence "John dented his fender trying to miss the dog Fido," Fido is essential to the noun dog because it limits or defines the dog being talked about. To put a comma in (trying to miss the dog, Fido) would imply that there is only one dog, and that his name is Fido.

3. When you use commas to set off parenthetical or incidental material, be sure to include the last comma. "We went to our uncle's house, the one he bought last year, to celebrate Thanksgiving" too often becomes "We went to our uncle's house, the one he bought last year to celebrate Thanksgiving." (Changes the meaning a bit, doesn't it?)

4. When your sentence is two clauses separated by a conjunction such as "and" or "but," the general rule of thumb is to use a comma if the last clause would be a complete sentence standing alone, and not to use a comma if the last clause would be an incomplete sentence. So, "John fell on the ice, and Mary tried hard not to laugh." But, "John had three bruises and Mary one."

5. The eternal debate: Do you put a comma before the last item in a series, or do you not? Should it be I packed my suitcase with shirts, pants, and socks or I packed my suitcase with shirts, pants and socks? There's really no agreement among the "experts," but the trend for years has been toward not using the final comma (that's the style of this newspaper). The main thing is to be consistent. Whichever way you choose, do it that way throughout your piece.

DASH
The dash is the one that looks like a hypen, but longer. (The software being used to type this can't make a dash, so pretend that -- is a dash.

For variety's sake, it can sometimes be useful to substitute dashes for commas when setting off parenthetical material. "We went to our uncle's house -- the one he lived in right after the divorce -- to celebrate Arbor Day." They are also helpful when parenthetical material is being quoted withing parenthetical material. "Our uncle's house was always cold (he was too cheap -- or so we were told -- to buy coal) in January and February."

EXCLAMATION POINT
The main thing to remember about these critters is: Don't! overuse! them! If your writing is strong, you usually don't need an exclamation point. If it isn't, an exclamation point won't save it. More than one or two for a single piece of writing, and you're overdoing it. Your prose will seem breathless and overwrought.

HYPHEN
There aren't a lot of rules about the use of hyphens. They are more for clarity and ease of reading than grammar's sake. Using them to make compound modifiers just has to be a matter of common sense. "The Senate yesterday considered civil-rights legislation" is just easier to read than "The Senate yesterday considered civil rights legislation" because it helps the reader's eye put related words together. And (to cite a much used example), "The president is going to speak to small business men" means something entirely different from "The president is going to speak to small-business men."

After certain terms are used so often that people expect to see them together, the general practice has been to drop the hyphen. For example, "high-school team" is most commonly written as "high school team" these days.

PERIOD
Use the period when you want the thought you're expressing to come to a full, dead stop. Because it does signal a full stop, you can't ever throw it into the middle of a sentence the way you can a question mark or an exclamation point (Like this? No, like this!) because you would be creating a contradiction: a sentence that stops fully, but doesn't.

If a sentence ends with an abbreviation, you don't need two periods, one for the abbreviation and one for the end of the sentence. One will do: John called himself a doctor even though he wasn't a real M.D.

Periods are also used to form ellipses, the three dots that inform the reader that something is being left out of quoted material. The general practice is (space) ... (space) to show the deletion. Thus: "Periods are also used to form ellipses ... that inform the reader that something is being left out...."

You will have noticed that when a sentence ends with an ellipses, you do use four periods, three for the ellipses and one to mark the end of the sentence. Go figure.

QUESTION MARK
Simple rule: Use a question mark for a direct question but not for an indirect one. The following is a direct question: "We were just wondering -- Why did you do it?" Or "We were just wondering: Why did you do it?" or "We were just wondering, Why did you do it?" Note that the first word of the question is capitalized regardless of the punctuation mark immediately preceding it. This is an indirect question: "We were just wondering if you'd tell us why you did it."

When the question mark comes before the end of the sentence, you don't have to capitalize the attribution. "When is class ever going to end? he wondered." And it's not necessary to put a comma after the question mark either, as in: "When is class ever going to end?, he wondered." The question mark does fine all by itself.

QUOTATION MARKS
1. A common fret among writers is how to handle the punctuation marks at the end-quote point. Well, fret no more. The period and comma always go inside the quotation marks: John said, "I'm just not happy." Then he quit his job. Or: "I'm just not happy at this job," John said. Also: Though John felt the job "paid well," he still wasn't happy. Not: Though John felt the job "paid well", he still wasn't happy.

Colons and semicolons always go outside the quote marks. John says his job "is just not a good one"; he thinks he'll keep it for another year, however.

Exclamation points and question marks can go either inside or outside, depending on context. So: John asked, "May I have a raise?" because it is the quoted material that is the question. But: Is it possible to get my eggs "sunny-side up"? because it's the whole sentence, not just the quoted material, that's the question.

2. The rule is to go to single quote marks if you have quoted material within quoted material: "Don't be unpatriotic," Mary said. "As JFK said, 'Ask what you can do for your country.' "

And if you have a third layer of quoted material, then you use double quotes inside the single quotes that are inside the double quotes: Betty said, "This theater is too crowded. The fire chief was right when he warned that 'this is a real hazard and we ought to heed the mayor's warning to "get it fixed." ' " But if you've gone that far, your sentence is way too complicated to be read easily.

3. If your quoted material runs several paragraphs, the usual practice is to use beginning quote marks only for every paragraph except the last one, which contains both opening quotes and the only closing quote marks.

4. Be careful of getting "cute" with your quotation marks and using them indiscriminately to emphasize certain words or phrases (as I just did). Quote marks are also used in a humorous attempt to convey the idea that the writer really means the opposite of what's being written. That Marsha is some "beauty," huh? Maybe you thought you were really underscoring Marsha's beauty, but more than one reader will think you were casting doubt on it.

SEMICOLON
The semicolon is the poor little stepchild of punctuation marks. It's not a full stop, but it's not just a little pause like the comma, either. When to use it, when to use it? In fact, many writers overuse it precisely because they're unsure of whether to put a little pause or a big pause in a particular place. Using a semicolon is a way to fudge the decision. The semicolon is a little like the exclamation point: A few can go a long way.

The one sure place to use a semicolon is in a series where you can't use commas to separate items in the series because there are other commas that are not part of the series. Using semicolons helps the reader keep the series straight: "I kept some of my lottery winnings and divided the rest among George; Betty, who's had a run of bad luck; Frank; and Ernest, who wants to buy my uncle's house."