Quick Reference 1: Sentence Boundaries at a Glance

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Quick Reference

Find the rule or distinction you need in seconds.

1. Sentence Boundaries at a Glance page 1

2. What Does This Word or Phrase Modify? page 2

3. Words With a Second Meaning page 5

4. Close Words With Different Meanings page 9

5. Answer Strength and Scope page 11

6. Match Graph Data to the Claim page 13

7. Main Point and Supporting Detail page 16

8. Function and Cross-Text Relationships page 17

9. Close Transitions With Different Jobs page 19

10. Check Every Part of the Goal page 21

11. High-Utility Vocabulary Under Pressure page 23

Every distinction on the following pages has already been taught in the chapters. Nothing here is new instruction. Find the page you need, look at the paired example, and go back to the question. If a page takes longer than thirty seconds to use, it has failed its job.

QUICK REFERENCE

Quick Reference

How to Use the Quick Reference

Every distinction here has already been taught. Nothing in this section is a new lesson. It exists for one moment only: standing between two choices, ten seconds before deciding, when the rule you learned has gone quiet in your head and you need to see it again fast.

Each page is built to be scanned, not read start to finish. Find the distinction you are missing, look at the paired example, and go back to the question. If a page takes longer than thirty seconds to use, it has failed its job.

Reference 1: Sentence Boundaries at a Glance

Every boundary question is really one question asked in different disguises: what is on each side of this mark, and what relationship between the two sides does that mark require? These four situations cover many of the boundary decisions that recur on the test.

Two complete sentences

If both sides are independent clauses, use a period, a semicolon, or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction; a comma alone is not enough.

Mark	Works?	Example
Period	Yes	The tank had leaked from the day it was filled. The company painted it brown.
Semicolon	Yes	The tank had leaked from the day it was filled; the company painted it brown.
Comma + and, but, or, so, for, nor, yet	Yes	The tank had leaked from the day it was filled, so the company painted it brown.
Comma alone	No, a splice	The tank had leaked from the day it was filled, the company painted it brown.

However, therefore, moreover, and similar words do not join sentences by themselves. They explain a relationship; they carry no grammatical weight. Comma-interrupter-comma reads like careful punctuation, and it is careful punctuation of an interrupter, not of a join. If both sides are complete sentences, the join still needs a period or a semicolon in front of the word.

Wrong: The bridge did not fail, however, the engineers had not modeled the sway.

Right: The bridge did not fail; however, the engineers had not modeled the sway.

A complete sentence followed by an explanation

A colon needs a complete sentence in front of it. What follows explains, specifies, lists, or illustrates that sentence. A dash can do the same job, once, after a complete clause.

Wrong: The site was chosen for one property; the permafrost that would keep the seeds frozen.

Right: The site was chosen for one property: the permafrost that would keep the seeds frozen.

The same distinction runs in the other direction too. A semicolon needs a complete sentence on both sides. If what follows the mark cannot stand alone, a colon is what the sentence needs, not a semicolon.

A main sentence with something extra inserted

Information you could lift out of the middle of a sentence takes a mark at each end: two commas, two dashes, or two parentheses, matched to each other. At the very start or end of a sentence, one mark is enough, since the sentence’s own boundary supplies the other edge.

Wrong: Emmy Noether who was refused a salaried post for four years, proved the theorem in 1918.

Right: Emmy Noether, who was refused a salaried post for four years, proved the theorem in 1918.

Test it by removing the inserted material. If the sentence still points at the same thing and still works, the material is extra and needs the pair. If the material is restrictive and necessary to identify the intended noun, it is generally not set off by commas. If it is supplementary, it is set off as a unit.

Essential, no commas: The rift valley that she had drawn from thousands of soundings became decisive evidence.

Extra, needs a pair: The rift valley, which she had drawn from thousands of soundings, became decisive evidence.

A long subject does not earn a comma before its verb. A subject can run fifteen or twenty words before the verb arrives, and that length alone is never a reason to insert a mark between them. A genuine inserted parenthetical, closed by a matching pair, is a different structure and is correct.

Wrong: A study of the seventeen letters she wrote after her library was sold, suggests she kept working.

Right: A study of the seventeen letters she wrote after her library was sold suggests she kept working.

One subject with two verbs takes no comma before the second verb, unless another rule requires one. A long first predicate can feel like a finished sentence, and that feeling is not evidence.

Wrong: Lamarr spent the war being photographed for magazines, and spent her evenings at a drafting table.

Right: Lamarr spent the war being photographed for magazines and spent her evenings at a drafting table.

An opening piece, then the main sentence

A clause or a participial phrase in front of the main sentence is closed with a comma before the main clause begins.

Wrong: After the mills closed in 1914 the water cooled by two degrees.

Right: After the mills closed in 1914, the water cooled by two degrees.

A series takes commas between its items, with a comma before the final and or or. Semicolons are especially useful for separating items in a complex series, particularly when the items themselves already contain commas of their own.

Wrong: The bones of a king a fragment of a crown and a silver coin lay beneath the slab.

Right: The bones of a king, a fragment of a crown, and a silver coin lay beneath the slab.

The one-line test

Cover the mark. Ask what stands on each side. Two complete sentences need a period, a semicolon, or a comma with a joining word. A complete sentence followed by an explanation can take a colon. A sentence interrupted by extra material needs a matched pair around that material. An opening dependent clause is normally followed by a comma before the main clause begins; an opening phrase commonly takes one too, especially when it runs any real length, but a short opening phrase can sometimes stand without one.