How to Use Semicolons for Sentence Variety
by Kathleen M.
Making decisions about when and how to use semicolons is more often about style than it is about grammar. Your sense of writing style comes through when you decide how to punctuate complex and compound sentences.
Your writing style also comes through when you showcase your ability to write a variety of sentence types. These kinds of considerations come in the later stages of your writing process, often after your idea makes sense as you work on polishing.
A semicolon connects two closely-related independent clauses.
For example:
“Intro to Accounting” is a difficult course; many students lack the precision for accounting work.
“Intro to Accounting” is a difficult course. Many students lack the precision for accounting work.
“Intro to Accounting” is a difficult course, and many students lack the precision for accounting work.
All of these are correct. But depending on what the rest of your paragraph/essay looks like, you can select the option that works best for you.
Another example:
Most students in my high school find that European history is boring; I think they are wrong.
Most students in my high school find that European history is boring; however, I think they are wrong.
Here, both examples have a semicolon. But the addition of the conjunctive adverb (however), makes the second option better because the relationship is more clear with the additional word.
The last rule for when to use a semicolon is for a list which includes items using commas. This rule is the least likely to pop up in your reasons to use a semicolon!
Here is an example:
I applied to colleges in New Orleans, LA; Boston, MA; and Los Angeles, CA.
If you didn’t use the semicolon between the place names, the sentence might be confusing.
Knowing how and when to use a semicolon makes it easier to use them correctly and opens up additional possibilities for you as you develop your signature writing style.
As with all things in writing, you don’t want there to be too much of any one thing, so beware of overusing the semicolon. Now you know how to use an additional technique with the semicolon for improving your style and sentence variety.
