When to use the proper punctuation when writing?

Punctuations? You mean quotation marks? Well, I guess you can use them to quote material, show dialog, identify the title of a poem, etc., and you can use them to show how a certain Word or phrase might be ironic. This can sometimes cause confusion. Take this headline for example: Ted Haggard says he is "completely pizzacrazy." Notice how the "completely pizzacrazy." could be (and probably should be) taken both as a quote and an ironic use of the phrase.

If you just meant punctuation in general you should probably purchase a book on grammar, since that would be too much to explain in one of these little boxes.

AnswerWhen you can use punctuation, according to the rules of English grammar, depends on which punctuation mark you want to use.

The period, for instance, should be used at the end of a sentence, unless the sentence is a question. Then you would use a question mark. If you want to make a side comment (like this) in the middle of a sentence, use parentheses. Ellipses usually show omitted information... or a long pause in your thinking (informally).

Here are a couple of links with more information; the first one is a writing center that has lessons and quizzes to help you learn, and the second is the wikipedia article with links to more kinds of punctuation:

http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/punct.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation