A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007

Punctuation - Period
Spelling
Part III. Style 20 spelling

This chapter offers general guidelines for punctuation in the text of your paper. Some rules are clear-cut, but others are not, so you often have to depend on sound judgment and a good ear.

Special elements such as abbreviations, quotations, and citations have their own guidelines for punctuation, which are treated in relevant chapters in this book.

If you are writing a thesis or dissertation, your department or university may have specific requirements for punctuation, which are usually available from the office of theses and dissertations. If you are writing a class paper, your instructor may also ask you to follow certain principles for punctuation. Review these requirements before you prepare your paper. They take precedence over the guidelines suggested here. For style guides in various disciplines, see the bibliography.

21.1 Period

A period ends a sentence that is a declarative statement, an imperative statement, or an indirect question. A period can also end a sentence fragment, if the context makes its rhetorical function clear. But this usage is rare in academic writing. In all these cases, the period is a terminal period and should be followed by a single space.

Consider the advantages of this method.

The question was whether these differences could be reconciled.

Put a period at the end of items in a vertical list only if the items are complete sentences (see 23.4.2). Otherwise, omit terminal periods, even for the last item, and do not capitalize the first words.

The report covers three areas:

1. the securities markets

2. the securities industry

3. the securities industry in the economy

Individual periods can also be used in other contexts, including abbreviations (see especially 24.1.3) and citations (16.1.2 and 18.1.2), and also in URLs (20.4.2, 17.1.7, and 19.1.8), where they are often called dots. Strings of periods, or dots, can be used in quotations (see 25.3.2), where they are called ellipses, and in tables (26.2.6) and front matter pages (A.2.1), where they are called leaders.

Do not use periods after chapter and part titles and most subheadings (see A.2.2) or after table titles (26.2.2). For periods in figure captions, see 26.3.2.