English Grammar Rules & Mistakes: Learn All of the Essentials: Writing, Speaking, Literature and Punctuation Rules Complete with 10 Key Skills and Over 200 Common Error Examples

Know when to end it: understanding periods, question marks and
exclamation marks
All great things must come to an end, even your new and improved written
work. However, finishing sentences off correctly is something that English
speakers are not particularly good at. If you don’t pay attention to grammar,
you will easily find yourself writing as if you are speaking. The result of this
is you often sound like you are babbling. You must be concise with your
written language and this is why punctuation is your savior. 
That being said, before we start on this punctuation journey, I want to make a
suggestion that you learn how to use punctuation sparingly. Don’t stuff your
sentences full with punctuation just because you know how to use it. Short,
well-written sentences always beat long, convoluted structures. Keep it
simple and you can’t go wrong.
I went to the shop.
This sentence is as simple as it gets. We have a pronoun, a verb, and a noun
followed by a period. As is with all sentences, the period is placed at the very
end to suggest to the reader that we have finished explaining one piece of
information. 
I went to the shop. I wanted to buy some bread.
I went to the shop as I wanted to buy some bread.
These two examples have exactly the same meaning, yet one is said in two
sentences and the other in one. When using a period, you can join two related
sentences together with a conjunction followed by placing a period at the end
of both now newly joined sentences. We will go further into detail later on
about phrases and clauses, but what is important to understand at this stage is
that you can join up similar information into one sentence. If it isn’t similar
or related, then put it in two.

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How much does the bread cost?
Another way to end a sentence is with a question mark. As the name
suggests, you use a question mark when you are asking a question.
Remember, to ask a question, you also have to use one of the question words,
which are how, why, what, when, where, and who. 
We have an incredible offer on bread today!
This is an example of using an exclamation mark. It is used this way to draw
the reader’s attention towards an exciting offer on bread. If you were to say
this sentence, you would almost certainly put a lot of energy into it. You
would probably raise your voice a bit and open your mouth wide. This is
because you want to make an impact with the sentence as most likely you
want people to be excited and come and buy your bread. When it comes to
writing, you can’t guarantee that a reader will understand the emotion you
intend behind a sentence, so putting an exclamation mark at the end can
indicate that this sentence has a strong meaning and conveys your intended
emotion.
Get away from my house, now!
As you can see in this example, an exclamation mark can show more than
one emotion. It is not limited to showing a happy emotion. In this case, the
sentence is demonstrating anger and fear. By placing the exclamation mark at
the end, it allows the reader to feel the urgency of what is being said.
You know I like to throw in a caveat or two. Well, there is a caveat with
exclamation marks that is you don’t want to overuse them. Though they are
excellent at conveying emotion, outside of the world of creative writing and
sales, they can make your writing seem immature. Used sparingly, they are
much more impactful than packing every other sentence with them.

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