Punctuation

Punctuation structures your content to show relationships within and among sentences. Consistent punctuation is necessary for ease of reading and understanding and greatly aids scannability.

General guidelines for sentence punctuation

• Sentences end in a period, question mark, or (rarely) an exclamation point, regardless of sentence length. (See Grammar for how to distinguish between sentences and fragments.)
• Only one space follows closing punctuation at the end of a sentence, not two spaces.
• When a sentence includes several commas, it’s usually a sign that the sentence is too complicated. Consider improving such sentences by breaking them up into shorter, crisper sentences.

Page titles, headings, and subheadings

Don't add closing punctuation to page titles, headings, or subheadings.

✅ Precise customer communications improve engagement
✅ Dynatrace and Microsoft Azure integrate to help accelerate your cloud transformation
✅ Dynatrace license lifecycle
✅ How the RUM JavaScript injection works
❌ Precise customer communications improve engagement.
❌ Dynatrace and Microsoft Azure integrate to help accelerate your cloud transformation.
❌ Dynatrace license lifecycle.

Insert a question mark in a heading only if necessary for clarity or in FAQ-style headings.

Use a colon symbol (:) followed by a space to separate a title from a subtitle. Capitalize the first word of the subtitle. Don't use a hyphen or an em dash to separate titles and subtitles.

✅ Stay ahead of the game: Forecast IT capacity with Dynatrace Grail and Davis AI
✅ Mobile app monitoring: A simple, all-in-one approach for mobile developers
❌ Stay ahead of the game: forecast IT capacity with Dynatrace Grail and Davis AI
❌ Stay ahead of the game—Forecast IT capacity with Dynatrace Grail and Davis AI

Avoid "ing" gerund verb forms in headings and subheadings. Use active verb forms instead.

✅ Create your own anomaly detector
✅ Investigate and compare problems
❌ Creating your own anomaly detector
❌ Investigating and comparing problems

Use sentence-case capitalization

Use sentence case rather than title case for titles and headings in written content. Sentence case capitalization is considered to be "lighter" and less formal than title case. By default, capitalize only the first word in any title, heading, or subheading; capitalize the first word after a colon in a subtitle. Capitalize proper nouns and product names, including third-party names, correctly in titles, headings, and subheadings (for example, "ActiveGate", "Smartscape", "iPhone," and "Dynatrace OneAgent"). Write all other words in lowercase.

✅ Dynatrace Platform Subscription enables broad adoption of Infrastructure Monitoring
❌ Dynatrace Platform Subscription Enables Broad Adoption of Infrastructure Monitoring
✅ How Dynatrace boosts production resilience with Site Reliabilty Guardian
❌ How Dynatrace Boosts Production Resilience with Site Reliabilty Guardian

The sentence-case rule for titles, headings, and labels applies even when phrases are preceded by a number.

✅ 24/7 availability monitoring
❌ 24/7 Availability monitoring
✅ 3 user sessions
❌ 3 User Sessions

Bulleted lists

In general, if any list item completes the introductory phrase, use a colon after the introductory phrase and add a period after each list item.

✅ System administrators can:

• Add new users.
• Delete users.
• Review and export logs.

Exception: Don't use periods if all list items have three or fewer words.

✅ The tab displays:

• The metric key
• The definition
• The name

Don’t use a colon after an introductory phrase if list items don’t complete the sentence.

✅ System requirements

• 16 GB RAM
• 64 GB storage
• Windows 11+

If list items are complete sentences in themselves, use a period after the list items—in this case, they don't complete the introductory phrase, so there's no colon.

✅ Aspects to consider for any proposed feature

• Understand the pain point your feature addresses.
• Research competitive offerings.
• Determine how many sprints it will take to develop the feature.

Step-by-step instructions

Use numbered lists for procedural steps that must be accomplished in sequence or for list items in ascending or descending value (for example, least to most important). There's no need to include a colon after an introductory phrase. In the case of procedures, each list item is a complete sentence.

✅ To install the extension

1. Download the extension installer.
2. Run the installer on your local machine.
3. Close the installer when installation is complete.

Commas

Commas contribute more to the reader's understanding than any other punctuation mark because they indicate how a sentence is structured. The placement of commas can radically alter the meaning of a sentence.

Serial commas

Insert a comma preceding the conjunction (such as "and" or "or") in any list of three or more list items. This type of comma is known as the serial comma. If your sentence contains too many comma-separated items, consider a bulleted list instead for improved scannability.

✅ The Dynatrace platform includes Infrastructure Monitoring, Log Monitoring, and Application Security.
✅ Save the file to your hard drive, a network drive, or a cloud-based drive.
❌ Save the file to your hard drive, a network drive or a cloud-based drive.

After introductory phrases

Insert a comma at the end of introductory phrases.

✅ With Dynatrace, you get precise answers from data.
✅ As of Q1, sales numbers have improved significantly.
❌ As of Q1 sales numbers have improved significantly.

To create compound sentences

Insert a comma in compound sentences to join independent clauses with a conjunction (such as "and", "or", "so", or "but"). An independent clause includes a subject and a verb and could therefore serve as a standalone sentence.

✅ Anyone can reply to a notification or answer, and you can tag another team member.
✅ Reboot your system now, or you can wait until the end of your work day.
❌ Select Preferences. And then select Dark mode.

Don't use a comma to join independent clauses without a conjunction; use a semicolon to join independent clauses when no conjunction is present.

✅ Rules are evaluated from top to bottom; the first matching rule applies.
❌ Rules are evaluated from top to bottom, the first matching rule applies.

Between coordinate adjectives

Insert a comma between two or more coordinate adjectives that describe a noun equally. Replacing the commas between such adjectives with "and" doesn't change the meaning of the sentence. Do not insert a comma between adjectives that must be read together to make sense.

✅ Configure an automated, event-driven alerting profile.
✅ Users expect rich, performant, and secure digital transactions.
✅ Set up three separate repositories.
❌ Configure an automated event-driven alerting profile.
❌ Set up three, separate repositories.

Other uses of commas

Insert a comma preceding and following the year in a complete date.

✅ Dynatrace was named a leader in the July 5, 2023, Gartner Magic Quadrant for APM and observability.
❌ Dynatrace was named a leader in the July 5, 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for APM and observability.

Not in compound predicates

Don't insert a comma in a compound predicate, that is, between two verbs that share the same subject. For example, both verbs below share the subject "Davis AI."

✅ Davis AI evaluates billions of transactions per second and alerts you when anomalies are detected.
❌ Davis AI evaluates billions of transactions per second, and alerts you when anomalies are detected.

In this example, a comma and conjunction separate two independent clauses with two different subjects ("Davis AI" and the pronoun "it", respectively).

✅ Davis AI evaluates billions of transactions per second, and it alerts you when anomalies are detected.

In general, consider rewriting complex sentences as multiple shorter sentences with standalone subjects.

✅ Davis AI evaluates billions of transactions per second. It also alerts you when anomalies are detected.

Parentheses

A parenthetical is information that can be added to a sentence without changing its meaning or structure. Insert parentheticals at the middle or end of sentences to provide additional, non-essential information.

Use parentheses to introduce an acronym after first spelling out a term.

✅ The log level of the CICS module (unlike other code modules) cannot be changed.
✅ Availability calculation is based on the length of time (duration) that a monitor runs.
✅ You can use the Dynatrace recorder (or you can use script mode) to capture an exact sequence of clicks and user input that you're interested in.
✅ Dynatrace Platform Subscription (DPS)
❌ Availability calculation is based on the length of time, duration, that a monitor runs.

em dashes

To add emphasis and improve conversational tone, use em dashes in place of parentheses. Note that there are no spaces on either side of an em dash.

You can insert an em dash symbol automatically in MS Word by typing two hyphens followed by a word and a space. To write an em dash in Markdown format, use ---. The HTML tag for an em dash is —.

✅ While processes are host centric—usually only associated with a single machine in your environment—services can span across multiple machines in a data center.
✅ Upload the config file—the file you created in the previous step—to the server.
✅ Never select links in external emails—regardless of the sender.
✅ Dynatrace stores timestamps of state changes—UP, DOWN, and UNMONITORED.
❌ Upload the config file — the file you created in the previous step — to the server.

You can also use em dashes in place of semicolons to connect two independent sentences.

✅ A browser monitor involves much more—it drives real web browser sessions with full HTML5/AJAX support.
✅ Start your free trial today—your customers will thank you.
❌ Start your free trial today — your customers will thank you.