When are you supposed to use a semicolon?
You are to use a semicolon in a couple of instances:
1) When connecting two sentences, you can use a semicolon. However both must be complete sentences. Example: The car is red; the car has been painted several times.
2) A semicolon can also be used to seperate items in a list when a comma has already been used. Example: On the picnic, I took the following: grapes, red and green; bananas, green and yellow; and apples, green and red.
When connecting two sentences with a semicolon, the sentences must be related to each other. The use of a semicolon serves to illustrate this close relationship; a period does not. If a period is used after the first sentence, the reader comes to a full stop before reading the second sentence and he/she just pauses after reading the first sentence if a semicolon is used. Therefore, the relationship between the two sentences is much more obvious.
A more common use of the semicolon is to separate two independent clauses.
A semi colon (;) is used:
- To join two independent clauses example: Some people like an ice cream; others like a pie or cake
- To avoid confusion between two ideas example: Some people like ice cream, which can be eaten in the Summer; others like pie or cake, which can be eaten in any season.
- To connect to lengthy clauses with commas already inserted example: Some people like chocolate, vanilla or blueberry ice cream; but others, for some reasons, like chocolate, cherry or blueberry cake.