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These are my conventions. As with the rules document, this is descriptive, not prescriptive. Of particular note are the specific ways I use common marks, like when I use double vs. single quotes, or en dashes vs, em dashes, and what the purpose of uncommon or otherwise unused marks are. This may include marks I have not yet used, or marks which have been used, but not yet in one of the ways I’ve described.

This may not include marks that are used in formats other than prose. For example, +, -, x or * or ×, / or ÷, mean addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which may be used in my writing, but are used in more specialized locations. Also includes phonetic alphabet characters, function notation, etc.

Double quotation marks: "

• Describes literal speech
• May be converted to ‘smart quotes’, “,”, which are equivalent, but attempt to curl inwards to the speech.

Single quotation marks, apostrophe: '

• As a single quote, paraphrases, quotes speech inside double quotes, or draws attention to the word surrounded, rather than only its literal meaning
• When needing to quote inside single quotes, you’d generally begin alternating single and double quotes. “He said ‘she said “they said you’re stupid”’”.
• As an apostrophe, creates a contraction, where inner characters may be elided. do not -> don’t
• May also be converted to ‘smart quotes’, ‘,’

Space: ” ”

• Showing where one word ends and another begins.
• Starts a sentence after a previous one ends.

Period, decimal point: .

• As a period, indicates an end of sentence. Marks a pause in the cadence.
• May be used inside quotation marks to indicate the end of a sentence, but the main sentence may continue outside. This is pretty rare, generally used when a comma isn’t a large enough pause. “I’m going to buy a boat.” said John.
• Will generally be used inside the double quotation marks if it ends the sentence. John spoke: “Whelp.”
• Used for shortening words like Mister -> Mr., et cetera -> etc., or for acronyms, Limited Liability Company -> L.L.C. Acronyms sometimes don’t use them, like LLC, or laser.
• As a decimal point, indicates flipping from nonnegative powers of ten to negative.

Question mark: ?

• Indicates that a sentence has the cadence of a question. The user either wants more information, or is ironically asking for information they already have.
• Some questions don’t end in a question mark, when the speaker doesn’t say it as a question. “I suppose you want me to die.” could be a question, but it isn’t spoken as such.
• Can end a quotation, and the sentence continues on.

Exclamation mark: !

• Indicates extra effort put into an end of a sentence, e.g. shock, anger.
• Sometimes used alongside a question mark for both extra effort and a question.
• Rarely combined with a question mark into an ‘interrobang’, ‽.
• Rarely repeated multiple times for greater emphasis.
• Rarely used to indicate a different version of a character, differentiated by a trait. Stupid!Samantha.

Comma: ,

• Brief pause in the cadence
• Usually ends speech quotations if it doesn’t end with a question mark, an exclamation mark, or a period, assuming it doesn’t interfere with the cadence.
• Usually used to briefly pause cadence, to make the sentence easier to digest.
• Conjunction or disjunction. Creates lists.
• Can be used to separate digits in large numbers.

Ellipsis: …

• Fading out or fading in.
• Elided text, often in quotations.
• May indicate a pattern continues. “1, 2, …”

Hyphen, minus sign: -

• Joining (some) compound words. Half-scratch, thirty-something.
• Many compound words just have a space or are combined into one.
• May be used for elements of a list, such as in this document. Has a greater break between elements than a comma, approximately equivalent to a sentence break.
• As a minus sign, indicates that a number is negative.
• May be used to split a word across lines, indicating that though the line ends, the word continues. Occasionally used at the start of a line, too.
• Sometimes used to indicate that a string is an affix. “non-”, “-less”.
• Occasionally used to emphasize multiple parts of a word, or have a word be read as a string of letters. “Sa-man-tha” emphasizes that someone is pronouncing first “Sa”, then “man”, then “tha”. “He saw ‘T-O-P-O-L-O-G-Y’” indicates each letter is being read.

En dash: –

• Used in a range. “3 – 10”, “Monday – Friday”.
• Used to indicate an explanatory remark. “The Channel spell – Send magic outside your body.”

Em dash: —

• As a pair, indicates a parenthetical in text, without as strong a jump in subject as literal parentheses (here used with a space on either end). May only exist as an opener if the sentence ends with the parenthetical.
• Attributes author to a letter or quote here, used with a space between the author and the dash).
• Indicates a sudden cut off (or fade in) of dialogue or thought.

Parentheses: (, )

• Indicates a parenthetical, a comment which may relate, but isn’t directly relevant to the main focus of the sentence.
• May be used to group like objects together, tighter than any other grouping.

Square brackets: [, ]

• Indicates words and parts of words which may have been altered or elided.

Asterism: ⁂

• Used as a dinkus. Divides sections. Here, divides subsections in chapters.

Slash: /

• Indicates alternation
• As a pair, indicates phonetic transcription.

Horizontal bar: —

• Divides a header or title from a section proper.
• Groups paragraphs within a subsection.
• Renders as a full line in markdown and html (

  ---

  )

Colon: :

• Indicates the start of a list
• What is claimed before the colon is demonstrated by what follows it.

Semicolon: ;

• Combines two independent clauses which are similar, with less pause than a period, but more than a comma.

Asterisk: *

• Footnote. See bottom of page for more info.
• Occasionally used for emphasis. In markdown, a word surrounded by one asterisk on either side is italicized, two is bolded.

Dagger, double dagger, triple dagger, turned dagger: †, ‡, ⹋, ⸸

• Footnote. See bottom of page for more info.

Caret: ^

• The following character is intended to be a superscript. R^3.
• Xor

(Edited 1.2.1)

Footnotes: ¹, ², …

• Footnote. See bottom of page for more info. May act as a function call. Associated with a full-sized numeral followed by a colon and a space.
• Occasionally used for exponentiation (that is, multiplying something by itself that many times).

Bare word cuts:

• Very sudden cutoff. “He grabbed the wrong d”

Fermata: 𝄐, 𝄑

• Musical notation. A long hold. Often held for a length at the discretion of the conductor.

Arrow: ->

• Indicates a mapping, or an input to an output.

(1.0.1) Non-breaking space:  

• Forces a space in html. Html by default collapses whitespace.

Newline: “
”,

• Separates paragraphs.