• Abrupt change: Use dashes to denote an abrupt change in thought in a sentence or an emphatic pause. But avoid overuse of dashes to set off phrases when commas would suffice.

Example: Through her long reign, the queen and her family have adapted — usually skillfully — to the changing taste of the times.

• In quote attributions: In stand-alone quotes, use an em dash and space before the name of the person to whom the quote is attributed.
• With spaces: Put a space on both sides of an em dash in all uses except at the start of a paragraph.

• Ranges: If you cannot spell out a range, you can use en dashes without space when indicating “up to and including.”

Example: Chapters 8–12

• As subtraction symbols: In arithmetic equations involving subtraction, use the en dash with spaces on both sides as the minus symbol.

Example: 4 – 1 = 3

Do not use exclamation points. Exclamation points are not consistent with First Republic Bank’s brand message, voice, and tone.

Automatic hyphenation should be turned off so that we can control where and when we break a word across two lines.

Hyphens are joiners. Use them to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or more words. Use of the hyphen is far from standardized. It is optional in most cases — a matter of taste, judgment, and style sense. But the fewer hyphens the better; use them only when not using them causes confusion. Some guidelines:

• Avoid ambiguity: Use a hyphen whenever ambiguity would result if it were omitted.

Example: The president will speak to small-businesspeople. (“Businessmen” is normally one word but “the president will speak to small businessmen” is unclear.) Other examples: He recovered his health. He re-covered the leaky roof.

• Compound modifiers: When a compound modifier — two or more words that express a single concept — precedes a noun, use hyphens to link all the words in the compound except the adverb very and any adverb that ends in -ly.

Example: a first-quarter touchdown, a bluish-green dress, a full-time job, a well-known man, a better-qualified woman, a know-it-all attitude, a very good time, an easily remembered rule

• Many combinations that are hyphenated before a noun are not hyphenated when they occur after a noun.

Example: The team scored in the first quarter. The dress, a bluish green, was attractive on her. She works full time. His attitude suggested that he knew it all.

• But when a modifier that would be hyphenated before a noun occurs instead after a form of the verb to be, the hyphen usually must be retained to avoid confusion.

Example: The man is well-known. The woman is quick-witted. The kids are soft-spoken. The play is second-rate.

• The principle of using a hyphen to avoid confusion explains why no hyphen is required with very and -ly words. Readers can expect them to modify the word that follows. But if a combination such as “little-known man” was not hyphenated, the reader could logically be expecting little to be followed by a noun, as in “little man.” Instead, the reader encountering “little known” would have to back up mentally and make the compound connection on their own.
• Two-thought compounds: serio-comic, socio-economic.
• Compound proper nouns and adjectives: Use a hyphen to designate dual heritage.

Use a hyphen: Italian-American, Mexican-American

No hyphen: French Canadian or Latin American

• Avoid duplicated vowels, tripled consonants.

Example: anti-intellectual, pre-empt, shell-like

• With numerals: Use a hyphen to separate figures in odds, ratios, scores, some fractions, and some vote tabulations. When large numbers must be spelled out, use a hyphen to connect a word ending in -y to another word.

Example: twenty-one, fifty-five

• Suspensive hyphenation

Example: He received a 10- to 20-year sentence in prison.

In general, all complete sentences should end in a period unless they are questions. One exception is when a sentence stands alone and ends with a URL or a logo, such as our EHL bug. Only one space should follow a period. Footnote markers come after periods, but trademark symbols come before.

• In general, place periods and commas inside, but semicolons and colons outside, quotation marks.

Example 1: You overuse the word “whatever”; I overuse the word “like.”

Example 2: He signed it as “S”.

• Question marks go inside the quotes if they are part of what is being quoted. They go outside if they are not part of the quote. See the Titles of Works section for more information.

Example 1: She asked, “Why me?”

Example 2: Did you like the poem “Phenomenal Woman”?

• Use double quotes, with single quotes within the double quotes if needed. Single quotes should not be used as a substitute for double quotes.

Example: He said, “No, you said, ‘Forget it.’”

• In general, use the semicolon to indicate a greater separation of thought and information than a comma can convey but less than the separation that a period implies.
• To clarify a series: Use semicolons to separate elements of a series when the items in the series are long or when individual segments contain material that also must be set off by commas. Note that the semicolon is used before the final “and” in such a series.

Example: He is survived by a son, John Smith, of Chicago; three daughters, Jane Smith, of Wichita, Kansas, Lauren Smith, of Denver, and Nicole, of Boston; and a sister Ashley, of Omaha, Nebraska.

• To link independent clauses: Use a semicolon when a coordinating conjunction such as “and,” “but,” or “for” is not present. If a coordinating conjunction is present, use a semicolon before “it” only if extensive punctuation is required in one or more of the individual clauses.

Example 1: The package was due last week; it arrived today.

Example 2: They pulled their boats from the water, sandbagged the retaining walls, and boarded up the windows; but even with these precautions, the island was hard-hit by the hurricane.

• Placement with quotes: Place semicolons outside quotation marks.

• Avoid using the slash to mean “and/or” and just rewrite the copy. Often, “and” or “or” would suffice. If the slash cannot be avoided, then use spaces around it if the options are multiword compounds, but do not use spaces when the options are just single words.

Example 1: typing/writing

Example 2: First Republic / First Republic Investment Management