When do use colons and semicolons

Introduce lists, text or tabular material —Capitalize the first word after the colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. Our future is dependent on three things: sustainability, diversity, and enhancing our strength and health. Clarify the titles of books, lectures and other compositions —Use a colon in titles that express two parallel ideas.

The words on either side of the colon should be able to stand on their own. A semicolon has two general uses: to clarify a series and to indicate two closely related sentences. A complex series contains internal punctuation. Semicolons help to clearly mark the break between each item in the series. Today I met Linda, who is tall; Fred, who is a biology major; Amy, who likes to swim; and John, who has brown hair. Do NOT use a semicolon between an independent and a dependent clause one that cannot stand as a sentence on its own.

Consider this variation on our example: The roads are icy. A semicolon looks like this: ;. As we mentioned above, a semicolon joins two independent clauses together to create a detailed sentence. Take a look at this example:. The semicolon communicates a deeper relationship. Think of it as shorthand for a conjunction. Remember: A single hyphen is not a dash. A single hyphen is a separate punctuation mark that serves a completely different purpose: to join two words to create a compound word , for example.

There are three different dashes you can use in your writing:. The em dash — is a super versatile punctuation mark. Here are all the different ways you can use one:. The en dash — is slightly shorter than the em dash, but still longer than a single hyphen. For example:. These two clauses could be separate sentences: "Mary drives a Mercedes.

Joanne drives a Chevrolet. Usually, you can tell from the context what the relationship is. This is useful in many situations, such as when writing cautiously, ironically, or humorously. One more very common use of the semi-colon is to join two clauses using a transition such as however , therefore , or on the other hand.

Here are some examples:.