英文标点符号使用Semi-colons,+colons,+and+dashes+-+The+Writing+Center.pdf

The Writing Center Home Make/Cancel an Appointment Submit a Draft Online Faculty Resources Handouts ESL About FAQs Semi-colons, colons, and dashes Like Like 324 people like this. What this handout is about This handout explains the most common uses of three kinds of punctuation: semi-colons (;), colons (:), and dashes (—). After reading the handout, you will be better able to decide when to use these forms of punctuation in your own writing. Semi-colons The semi-colon looks like a comma with a period above it, and this can be a good way to remember what it does. A semi-colon creates more separation between thoughts than a comma does but less than a period does. Here are the two most common uses of the semi-colon: To help separate items in a list, when some of those items already contain commas. Let’s look at an example, as that is the easiest way to understand this use of the semi-colon. Suppose I want to list three items that I bought at the grocery store: apples grapes pears In a sentence, I would separate these items with commas: I bought apples, grapes, and pears. Now suppose that the three items I want to list are described in phrases that already contain some commas: shiny, ripe apples small, sweet, juicy grapes firm pears If I use commas to separate these items, my sentence looks like this: I bought shiny, ripe apples, small, sweet, juicy grapes, and firm pears. That middle part is a bit confusing—it doesn’t give the reader many visual cues about how many items are in the list, or about which words should be grouped together. Here is where the semi-colon can help. The commas between items can be “bumped up” a notch and turned into semi-colons, so that readers can easily tell how many items are in the list and which words go together: I bought s