Indulging the Art of the Semicolon

Outside of the period, comma, question mark and exclamation point, many beginning writers stray away from using semicolons, colons and long dashes simply because they fear they’ll use them incorrectly.

Embrace these punctuation marks. Not only do they offer more opportunities for sentence variety, they increase the level of creativity with which you write.

Semicolon < ; >

The most common use for a semicolon is between independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction. However it is also used between items in a series when that contain internal punctuation.

Separating Independent Clauses
Use a semicolon only when the two independent clauses are closely related or depend on one another for articulation. If the two independent clauses can stand alone as two sentences, end them with periods. This is a relatively blurry line, but as you practice more, you’ll find the difference in your style.

Example
Don’t trust the government to help you; trust that they’ll make things harder for you.

It’s almost election time; there’s almost no point in impeaching Bush now.

Even though those two clauses could stand alone as two sentences, they do not stand alone as independent thoughts; they compliment each other. With only one or the other, the sentence would be vague and slightly ambiguous.

Coordinating Conjunctions
For sentences with coordinating conjunctions, such as, "but," "so," "and" and "even though" use a comma.

Example
It’s almost election time, and there’s almost no point in impeaching Bush now.

Between Items in a Series Containing Internal Punctuation
What this means is when listing a series of phrases that contain commas or long dashes, use a semicolon to clearly denote the separation of the items; using commas can be confusing since there are already other commas in use.

Example
As an American I am cautious to trust the media and the government because they lie to us to boost morale, even though the truth eventually leaks out; they bolster minor events into large catastrophes to instill fear in the average American; and, despite the push to improve the state of the union, the government insists on force-feeding democracy to countries unwilling to cooperate.

NOTE When using typing programs with a built-in grammar check, such as Microsoft Word, the program will most likely pick out sentences similar to the example above and mark it as a "long sentence." Grammatically there is nothing wrong with long sentences. Depending on the reader, the sentence and your writing style, long sentences have a tendency to confuse the reader. Sticking with a long sentence or rewriting in shorter sentences is up to you. Stay true to your style. As long as your content is clear, the reader shouldn’t struggle. But that’s another topic.