How to use a semi-colon

A semi-colon can be used instead of a full stop between two related sentences. This links them together in a way a full stop doesn't.

It looks like this ;

When used correctly the semicolon can make writing clearer.

Look at this example.

Hannah loves football ; it's her favourite sport.

In this sentence, one of the clauses (‘it’s her favourite sport’) wouldn't make full sense on its own.

It needs the first clause to be completely clear, so we link the two clauses together with a semi-colon (;).

A semi-colon can also sometimes replace a co-ordinating conjunction in a sentence (words like 'and', 'but' or 'so').

For example:

Her cape is yellow and his cape is green.

Instead of using 'and', we can write:

Her cape is yellow; his cape is green. You can also use semicolons in a list

Usually, we use commas to punctuate a list, like this:

They saw seaweed, seagulls, shells, pebbles and starfish.

But when a list is made up of different groups of words, we add a colon before the list and then split up the groups of words using semi-colons.

For example:

Then Lola saw: three fishing boats; a speedboat; two divers in the water and someone watching it all from the rocks.You can also use semicolons in a list

Top Tip!

• Using semi-colons in this way makes the individual items in the list stand out much more clearly.

• When you're using semi-colons in a list, you don't need to put one before the 'and' that comes before the final item in the list.

Write out each of these sentences on a piece of paper, replacing the co-ordinating conjunction with a semi-colon.

1. Jay's team was the Panthers and Hannah's was the Hawks.

2. It started to rain hard but the referee told them to play on.

3. Jay's dog began barking on the touchline so his mum had to take it home.

You can check your answers in this answer sheet.