A Paragraph to Punctuate

In practice

This worked example is constructed for this course. The draft reads: "The committee's report had three findings, the budget was short; the staff was overworked; and the building needed repairs. The chairs recommendation was clear; to hire two new staff members. The report quoted one employee who said, “We are doing the work of three people”. Several employees' noted that the hiring freeze, which began last year, had made things worse." Check each mark. The first sentence introduces a list after a complete clause, so the comma after findings should be a colon, and the items, which contain no internal commas, can be separated by commas: "three findings: the budget was short, the staff was overworked, and the building needed repairs." The second sentence needs an apostrophe in chair's, since the recommendation belongs to one chair, and its semicolon should be a colon, because "to hire two new staff members" explains the recommendation and is not an independent clause. The third puts the period outside the closing quotation mark; with no citation following, it goes inside: "people.”" The fourth uses an apostrophe to form a plural; employees here is a plain plural subject, so remove it. The commas around "which began last year" are correct, since the clause adds nonessential detail about the freeze.