Do you know the right way to use a semicolon? Do you use them in your writing?

Many good writers will often leave them alone, for fear of putting them in the wrong place. And there are those who think the semicolon is old-school stuff, far too formal for their novel. Yet others use them all over the place, throwing them around like wet pasta – some stick, some don’t.

Semicolons are not difficult to get to grips with and, like many punctuation marks, although you need to be careful not to overuse them, they can provide opportunities for variety and expression that you definitely want to take advantage of.

What Are The Advantages?

For a start, if one thought comes tumbling quickly after another, you don’t have to end the first one; simply use a semicolon to blend them seamlessly together. Why bother using a comma teamed with a coordinating junction when one tiny little semicolon can do the same thing. It creates a pause where you need it and signifies a small change in thought.

You get a much better command over the language and you can use the semicolon to fine tune both meaning and style in your writing. You know you’re a good writer and you know you have some fantastic ideas; use that semicolon to jazz it up a bit.

Lastly, once you get to grips with them, using semicolons in the right place and for the right effect will come naturally to you.

By the way, in case you didn’t know, the coordinating junctions I mentioned earlier are:

and

or

nor

yet

for

but

so

Use Them Sparingly

Much like the em dash, semicolons should be used sparingly. Keep them for a really special effect. If you were writting a blog post or short article—no more than 600 words—you wouldn’t use any more than one semicolon. Up to a thousand words and you can get away with three at the most, depending on the writing style and the article’s purpose. A rule of thumb is one semicolon to 500 words but you don’t have to follow this rule; just be careful where you use them and how often.

At the end of the day, punctuation is a personal thing. How you use it and how often you use certain types will depend entirely on your own writing style and rhythm, on how you bring variety to your sentences to create an effect or get your voice across.

With the humble semicolon, you must also take your writing purpose and audience into account as well as your own style. Those who write mainly literary fiction will probably use more semicolons than a blogger or marketer, for example. Why?

Because the audience a literary fiction writer targets is more accustomed to reading prose that has been thought out and constructed properly and that includes the use of semicolons. Blog readers don’t tend to care so much.

In part 2, we’ll look at the most popular ways of using the semicolon.