Comments on: Punctuation Marks: How to Use a Semicolon

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:16:58 +0000

Hm. The problem I see with your sample sentence is that the best construct would be to completely rewrite it to remove that dangling phrase from the end:

This includes all of the following: checking the children’s Friday folders and backpacks, maintaining communication with the children’s teachers, and being involved in the children’s extracurricular activities.

-or-

This includes checking the children’s Friday folders and backpacks, maintaining communication with the children’s teachers, and being involved in all of the children’s extracurricular activities.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:24:40 +0000

I know this is a crazy question, but we’ve got quite a debate going on.

The semicolon in the sentence below… What it is referring to? Is it referring to the entire list of items (Friday folders, backpacks, communicaiton with teachers, and children’s extra curricular activities. Or does it strictly mean every extra curricular activity.

This includes checking the children’s Friday folders and backpacks, maintaining communication with the children’s teachers, and being involved in the children’s extracurricular activities; all of them.

By: Why You Need to Care About Semicolons | Publishing In the 21st Century

Why You Need to Care About Semicolons | Publishing In the 21st Century — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:40:18 +0000

[...] Melissa Donovan in WritingForward.com has this to say about it: [...]

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:41:00 +0000

I don’t think there is any word you cannot use after a semicolon but whether you can place a word after a semicolon depends on context. In other words, I’d need to see the example to give you an exact answer.

By: Shon

Shon — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:50:16 +0000

Hey guys, just a question:
can you use the word “that” after a semicolon?
One of my friends was editing my essay and he thought that should be thought about. I couldn’t find anything that said not to use “that” after a semicolon, but I just need a review.