Essentially, semicolons, colons, and dashes offer you different ways to join your ideas together, and you can use them to adjust how you want your sentences to sound. A comma between two independent clauses creates a run-on sentence that doesn't give enough definition between your ideas, while a period between them sometimes distances them too much. Connecting your clauses with a semi-colon might provide a pause that is just right, while a dash could make that pause more dramatic by highlighting the following clause, or a colon could signal that the second clause expands on the first. But remember that when deciding whether to use a period or a semi-colon, a colon or a fash, it is more a stylistic/rhetorical choice than a choice of right or wrong. Show How do I use them properly?1. DashesQuick Use: Use a dash to connect independent clauses or to inerrupt a main clause in a way that creates dramatic effect. Dashes function in two ways: to signal interruptions in a sentence (basically like parentheses), and to connect independent clauses. But if the first function can be substituted with parentheses and the second with a semi-colon or ocnjunction, then why use dashes instead? The effect of fashes is that they highlight the clause that they are inserting, thus bringing attention to it. There's always a second chance – even for someone like you – so don't think your career is at an end. I know you are still there – somewhere in the sky. 2. ColonsQuick Use: Introduce a list or quotation, or connect two clauses in which the clause after the colon details or expands on the first. You might be most familiar with colons being used to introduce a list of items or a quotation. These are my favourite childhood memories: walking with my grandfather, picking apples in the fall, and opening gifts on a cold, Christmas morning. In expressing the weakness of divine right, Richard II connects wall imagery to the image of a crown: '...for withing the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death at his court, and there the antic sits' (III.ii.160-2)
Here's what I want: chicken, oregano, and lemons. (Complete sentence, followed by a list) OR I want the following: chicken, oregano, and lemons. (Incomplete sentence with signalling word)
The things I want are: chicken, oregano, and lemons. (Incomplete sentence with no signalling word) Another way that colons are used is to connect two clauses, but only when the following clause gives an exaples or expands on the previous one. In these circumstances, a colon serves as a substitute for a word like 'namely' or 'that is'. There was a book I especially loved from that class: the Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon. She finally did what she never thought of doing her entire life: pursuing a degree in photography. 3. SemicolonsQuick use: Join independent clauses together in a way that emphasizes their connection. The easiest way to think of a semicolon's use is to think of it like variations on a period. However, whereas periods separate two ideas, a semicolon bring them together. In this way, you can emphasize that two ideas are related to one another in an important way, rather than having them exist as two independent thoughts. Just remember: if you can't use a period, you can't use a semicolon. There was no one left; the kitchen counters and the dining chairs were empty, and only the faint memory of laughter remained. There isn't a right or wrong when it comes to choosing between a semicolon and a period; the choice is a stylistic one.
There was no one left, the kitchen counters and the dining chairs were empty, and only the faint memory of laughter remained. There was no one left. The kitchen counters, the dining chairs were empty, and only the faint memory of laughter remained. In the first sentence, the choice comma has created a comma-splice, which is a grammatical error. The second is grammatically correct, but intentionally puts a silence before the following thought to give a different kind of emphasis to the thought expressed.
A sadness hangs in the plants that are dying for the winter; but take heart, young one, for they will bud anew in the spring. What punctuation marks can you put in between two independent clauses?Commas are used to separate two independent clauses. An independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence. They usually occur with coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet.
How do you conjoin two independent clauses?Independent clauses are strong. Join two independent clauses with a semicolon.. Join two independent clauses with a comma and coordinating conjunction.. Which can be used between two independent clauses?Two independent clauses can also be joined into one compound sentence with a semicolon alone. (Note: You can use a comma between independent clauses only if you also use a coordinating conjunction.)
Can you use a semicolon with two independent clauses?Use a semicolon between independent clauses when the clauses are closely related in meaning and when there is no coordinating conjunction between them. Often two independent clauses which are closely related in meaning can be connected by a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, not, for, so, yet).
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