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NASA SP-7084
Grammar, Punctuation, and
Capitalization
A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors
Mary K. McCaskill
Langley Research Center
Hampton, Virginia
Preface
Page iii
Preface
The four chapters making up this reference publication were originally written as part of an ongoing effort to
write a style manual for the Technical Editing Branch of the NASA Langley Research Center. These chapters
were written for technical publishing professionals (primarily technical editors) at Langley. At the urging of my
branch head, I am making this part of the style manual available to the technical publishing community.
This publication is directed toward professional writers, editors, and proofreaders. Those whose profession lies
in other areas (for example, research or management), but who have occasion to write or review others' writing
will also find this information useful. By carefully studying the examples and revisions to these examples, you
can discern most of the techniques in my editing "bag of tricks"; I hope that you editors will find these of
particular interest.
Being a technical editor, I drew nearly all the examples from the documents written by Langley's research staff. I
admit that these examples are highly technical and therefore harder to understand, but technical editors and other
technical publishing professionals must understand grammar, punctuation, and capitalization in the context in
which they work.
In writing these chapters, I came to a realization that has slowly been dawning on me during my 15 years as a
technical editor: authorities differ on many rules of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization; these rules are
constantly changing (as is our whole language); and these rules (when they can be definitely ascertained)
sometimes should be broken! Thus much of writing and editing is a matter of style, or preference. Some of the
information in this publication, particularly the chapter on capitalization, is a matter of style. Langley's editorial
preferences are being presented when you see the words we prefer, "we" being Langley's editorial staff. I do not
intend to imply that Langley's style is preferred over any other; however, if you do not have a preferred style,
Langley's editorial tradition is a long and respected one.
I wish to acknowledge that editorial tradition and the people who established it and trained me in it. I am also
grateful to Alberta L. Cox, NASA Ames Research Center, and to Mary Fran Buehler, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
for reviewing this document.
Contents
Page iv
Contents
Preface
iii
1. Grammar
1
1.1. Grammar and Effective Writing
1
1.2. Nouns
1
1.2.1. Possessive Case
1
1.2.2. Possessive of Inanimate Objects
2
1.3. Pronouns
3
1.3.1. Antecedents
3
1.3.2. Personal Pronouns
3
1.3.3. Relative Pronouns
4
1.3.4. Demonstrative Pronouns
6
1.4. Verbs
7
1.4.1. Tense
7
1.4.2. Mood
9
1.4.3. Voice
9
1.4.4. Verb Number
10
1.5. Adjectives
12
1.5.1. Articles
12
1.5.2. Unit Modifiers
13
1.6. Adverbs
14
1.6.1. Misplaced Adverbs
15
1.6.2. Squinting Adverbs
15
1.6.3. Split Infinitives
15
Contents
Page v
1.7. Prepositions
16
1.7.1. Prepositional Idioms
16
1.7.2. Terminal Prepositions
17
1.7.3. Repeating Prepositions
17
1.8. Conjunctions
17
1.8.1. Coordinating Conjunctions
17
1.8.2. Subordinating Conjunction
19
1.9. Verbals
20
1.9.1. Coordinate Gerunds and Infinitives
21
1.9.2. Idiom Requiring Gerund or Infinitive
21
1.9.3. Dangling Verbals
22
2. Sentence Structure
26
2.1. Sentence Structure and Effective Writing
26
2.2. Subjects and Verbs
26
2.2.1. Clarify Subject
26
2.2.2. Make Verbs Vigorous
28
2.2.3. Improve Subject-Verb Relationship
30
2.3. Parallelism
31
2.3.1. Connectives Requiring Parallelism
32
2.3.2. Itemization
32
2.4. Brevity and Conciseness
33
2.4.1. Wordiness
33
2.4.2. Shortening Text
35
Contents
Page vi
2.4.3. Shortening Titles
35
2.5. Comparisons
37
2.5.1. Comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs
37
2.5.2. Ambiguous Comparisons
38
2.5.3. Comparison Constructions
39
2.6. Emphasis
41
2.6.1. Emphasizing With Sentence Structure
41
2.6.2. Emphasizing With Punctuation
42
3. Punctuation
44
3.1. A Functional Concept of Punctuation
44
3.2. Apostrophe
44
3.3. Brackets
45
3.4. Colon
45
3.4.1. Colons That Introduce
45
3.4.2. Conventional Uses of the Colon
48
3.4.3. Use With Other Marks
48
3.5. Comma
48
3.5.1. Commas That Separate
48
3.5.2. Commas That Enclose
52
3.5.3. Conventional Uses of the Comma
55
3.5.4. Use With Other Marks
56
3.6. Em Dash
56
3.6.1. Dashes That Enclose
56
3.6.2. Dashes That Separate
57
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