Punctuation 101: The 5 Essential Rules For Using Semi-Colons

Punctuation 101: The 5 Essential Rules For Using Semi-Colons

Punctuation often has quite a hard time these days and there still remains a considerable amount of confusion as to its proper use. The semi-colon is certainly no exception and over time, its use has become a little blurred. So, let's look at the five essential rules for the correct use of semi-colons.

One It is used to break up a sentence where a pause needs to be more pronounced than that of a comma. Remember also that whatever follows a semi-colon needs to relate to what preceded it. Here's an example:

Her hobby was collecting foreign stamps; nothing pleased her more than her large collection of stamps from all over the world.

Two It is best to use the semi-colon before words such as however, therefore, that is, for example. These are introductory words. An example is:

You will need some items if you want to collect stamps; for example, a stamp book, glue, tweezers, paper and, of course, lots of stamps.

Three Use the semi-colon between two sentences joined by a conjunction (and, but) if one or more commas are in the first sentence:

When I finish gluing in these stamps, I will do the washing up; and that is a promise.

Four Always use it outside of quotation marks. Semi-colons never remain inside quotation marks:

Staring at her stamps she said, "What a wonderful collection"; she always said the same thing each time she admired her stamp books

Five Use it for making lists. For example:

She rearranged her possessions on the table: two stamp books; three pots of glue; four pencils, a new pair of tweezers; and a magnifying glass.

So, as you can see, there are many uses for the semi-colon and it pays to bear the rules in mind when you are writing your texts. It should also be noted that even though the semi-colon is often used instead of a colon, there are differences between these two punctuation marks. As mentioned previously, whatever follows the semi-colon needs to relate to what precedes it, but unlike with a colon, this does not need to be a summary or a clarification or a list.

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