6. Punctuation
6.1 We follow traditional American punctuation conventions. Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, with colons and semicolons outside quotation marks. Exclamation and question marks only go inside if they are part of the quotation.
“Tomorrow morning,” he fumbled, “we will seek out the Camembert.”
6.2 Use double quote marks for citations, and single quote marks for citations within citations.
“After long hours of research, they discovered that ‘the cheese’ was in fact an elaborate scheme to bring down the company.”
6.3 Always use the Oxford comma.
He served a smorgasbord with Birdwood Blue Heaven, Duddleswell, and Cotswold.
6.4 When rendering poetry or lyrics in the main text, use / separated by spaces on either side to separate lines, and // separated by spaces on either side to separate stanzas
Break my face in / It was the kindest touch you ever gave / Wrap my dreams around your thighs / And drape my hopes upon the chance to touch your arm // Fabulous muscles
6.5 Otherwise, avoid the use of slashes in terminology. Do not use and/or; simply use or.
6.6 Intersecting identities are not separated by commas.
Black queer author, Asian American trans poet
6.4 We are no longer in the age of the typewriter (even though we do not discriminate against it as a writing tool). There is no excuse for using a double space after a period unless you just like torturing copy-editors.
Usage of / in verses
UK, US(A), and DC are written without periods.
"and/or": punctum is against the usage of "and/or." First off, English "or" can be used inclusively as in "milk or sugar"; second, "and/or" just interrupts the reading.
Following AP style and common cultural use, punctum does not hyphenate identities, even if they modifying nouns. This goes for ethnicities and other identities, e.g., disability, 2SLQBTQ+. For that matter, we also do not use commas to separate them either, e.g., fat queer scholars of color, Black queer author. Identities are not hyphenated, even if the term is used as an adjective or otherwise modifies a noun; e.g., "Mexican American," "Mexican American cultures," and so on.