How to Make a Smiley Face With Punctuation

Smileys made with punctuation add feeling to text.

A smiley is composed of a series of characters on the computer keyboard used to add emotion to email, text messages and instant messages. Adding a smiley face made with punctuation helps convey emotion that might be difficult to interpret from the text. Typing a smiley face into your message is a quick way to express thoughts and emotions without having to type out the words.

Instructions

1. Type a colon for the eyes of your smiley face. If you want a smiley with glasses, use the number eight for eyes instead of a colon.

2. Type a dash to represent your smiley's nose. The nose is part of the classic smiley, but you can leave it out.

3. Type a right-side parenthesis for the smile. For a larger smile, type a capital "D" in place of the parenthesis.

Tips & Warnings

• Refrain from using smiley faces or other emoticons in business correspondence.

References

• NetLingo: Smileys and Emoticons
• George Mason University: Emoticons

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Melissa Kaplan's Herp Care Collection: Emoticons and Abbreviations (Smileys)
• Seekwellness; Smiley File; Donald B. Ardell