Semicolon

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Use-cases

Replacing a conjunction

A semicolon can be used in place of a conjunction to separate two independent clauses.

Examples

Students received course credit for participation; community members received $10.

Complementing a conjunctive adverb

A semicolon should be used to separate two independent clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb such as "however," "therefore," or "nevertheless."

Examples

The children studied the vocabulary words; however, they had difficulties with recall.

Separating a list containing item-internal commas

If any item of a list such as contains internal commas, items should be separated with a semicolon rather than a comma.

Examples

Apples, grapes, and oranges; bananas and pears

Sectioning within parentheses

To avoid using back-to-back parentheses, a single pair of parenthesis should contain multiple notes separated by semicolons

Examples

(n = 33; Fu & Ginsburg, 2020)

References