Non-surprisingly, a question mark indicates a question consisting of who, what, when, where, or why. It is usually placed at the end of a sentence.
In writing, the mark is used to have a point read out as a question, differentiating a real question from what is actually just a statement. For example:
Ride a bike? Never! When it comes to direct quotes, put a question mark inside the quote:
"Yes?" she asked.But if the whole sentence is a question, then put it right at the end. The same applies for parentheses.
Here's an example of
how to use it when writing a quoted question that has a quoted statement:
"What did the chicken mean," the reporter wondered, "when she said 'It's a free country'?"Indirect questions are embedded into declarative statements, so they do not have question marks.
A cool exception to note is the non-standard interrobang, which is a question mark and an exclamation point:
It's great for casual writing but best left out of formal copy. An alternative could be to place both punctuation marks next to each other instead: ?!
Do you have any questions about this punctuation mark that you want explained in more detail? Drop it in the comments section!
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