APA Punctuation Quiz

Directions: Add punctuation where needed in each sentence. Answers and explanations appear
below.

1. The department assignments for this year are: Mr. Finch Spanish Ms. Welsh English Mr.
Curabe French and Mrs. Masters Latin.

2. Prince (2004) stated “The participants were carefully screened for mental illness prior to the
initial evaluation” (p. 2).

3. Opening week is an anxiety inducing time for new teachers.

4. Each KAM contains a Breadth Depth and Application section.

5. “Animals are wonderful companions for children and the elderly” (Marsh 2008 p. 6).

6. Frank (2006) required participants to keep a journal of several daily occurrences wake time,
hours of sleep, and quality of sleep.

7. The classic author E B White wrote Charlotte’s Web.

8. Frank is overweight he also has type 2 diabetes.

9. Cats living outside are at a greatly increased risk of being killed by a motor vehicle (People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals PETA, 2002).

10. Trying to study in bed is often counterproductive; however, it is tempting for many sleep
deprived students.

© 2010 Walden University Writing Center

 Answers and Explanations

1. The department assignments for this year are: Mr. Finch, Spanish; Ms. Welsh, English; Mr.
Curabe, French; and Mrs. Masters, Latin.

This sentence needs commas after each name to help the reader make sense of the content. Then,
because the elements of this list contain commas, each element must be separated by a semicolon
to avoid confusion.

2. Prince (2004) stated, “The participants were carefully screened for mental illness prior to the
initial evaluation” (p. 2).

This sentence needs a comma because the independent clause does not seamlessly introduce the
quoted material.

3. Opening week is an anxiety-inducing time for new teachers.

The phrase anxiety-inducing requires a hyphen because it is a compound modifying the word
time.

4. Each KAM contains a Breadth, Depth, and Application section.

Each element in a list of 3 or more must be separated by a comma.

5. “Animals are wonderful companions for children and the elderly” (Marsh, 2008, p. 6).

APA requires commas between the author, year, and page in an in-text citation. Also, the period
for the sentence appears after the citation, not at the end of the quote.

6. Frank (2006) required participants to keep a journal of several daily occurrences: wake time,
hours of sleep, and quality of sleep.

This sentence requires a colon after the introductory clause because it contains a final phrase that
elaborates on the preceding thought.

© 2010 Walden University Writing Center

7. The classic author E.B. White wrote Charlotte’s Web.

Here the name includes abbreviated initials, which require periods.

8. Frank is overweight; he also has type 2 diabetes.

This is actually two complete sentences. They can be punctuated correctly in two ways, either by
separating them with a semicolon, or by simply using a period at the end of each sentence.

9. Cats living outside are at a greatly increased risk of being killed by a motor vehicle (People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA], 2002).

Here brackets are used to enclose material that is already within parentheses.

10. Trying to study in bed is often counterproductive; however, it is tempting for many sleep-
deprived students.

Because the phrase sleep-deprived is used as an adjective to describe students, it requires a

hyphen. Counterproductive is not hyphenated because APA does not hyphenate compounds with
the counter prefix.

© 2010 Walden University Writing Center