Professional shorthand writers punctuate by leaving spaces. Others more precise, make use, in particular work, of signs which cannot clash with their phonographic symbols. The vowel indication of other methods of shorthand writing make a substitution of extraordinary punctuational signs a necessity when punctuation is desired, but the uniformity of the word-building of Haven's Practical Phonography permits the use of all ordinary punctuation marks except the dash, the marks of parenthesis and the hyphen. The dash is, therefore, represented by a short waved line, the parenthesis by brackets and the hyphen by two small parallel lines. See sentence of sign 314 in Exercise.

The foregoing remarks apply solely to work done at leisure (business memoranda, etc.), there being, of course, no time in actual reporting for any punctuation marks whatever. Punctuation at time of reporting is done entirely by spacing, a space of about an inch-and-a-half serving for a period, a space of somewhat less than an inch doing duty for all the other ordinary marks, the hyphen not being indicated at all. All new paragraphs are commenced one inch from the left hand margin of the paper written upon, questions commencing one-and-one-half inches from same margin, the other lines of writing all commencing very near left-hand margin.