Writing & Punctuation: How to use COLONS & SEMICOLONS

Next, why don't you watch my lesson on how to be a better writer:

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to engVid with me, Benjamin. Today's lesson is a writing one that is going to really show that you are a sophisticated writer. That means that you are intelligent and that you've got a good understanding of English grammar because you can use these two key punctuation marks. Introducing on my right the semi-colon. Looks a little bit like this, comma with a full stop on top (;), and on my left the colon. No, I'm not talking about your posterior; I am talking about this: Dot, dot (:). Okay.

First the semi-colon. What's it used for? A semi-colon is used to replace a conjunction or full stop. Okay? So rather than lots of boring, short sentences, I spice things up by putting in a semi-colon. What it does is it connects two closely related ideas. So, instead of saying: "They love chocolate."-full stop-"I can't stand it." or: "They love chocolate, and I can't stand it", you put a semi-colon in there. It just... It just gives it better effect. It's just... It's just more interesting the way it sounds and the way it looks on the page. Second way in which we use a semi-colon: To separate items in a list. For example, this is talking about a pudding that I'm making, a dessert if you don't use this English word, here. "For the pudding, I need:" Okay? Spot the colon; we'll talk about that in a moment. Now we are putting the semi-colons to separate the ingredients for the pudding. "Berries, fresh summer ones;" okay? So that's one... It's the berries, this is the description of the berries. Okay? I put the semi-colon after I finish talking about the berries. "...milk", now let's give a little bit of detail about the milk: "full-fat milk;" always tastier. Okay? Put a semi-colon after that. "...a new whisk, because I stood on the last", okay? "...and", okay? So we don't need a semi-colon here because we're using "and", and then you put the final secret ingredient.

Let's move over to the colon. Colons introduce lists, like we have just seen here: "This is what I need for my pudding:" dong, dong dong, now I'm going to put my list. Colons isolate words to create emphasis. "He knew what he was feeling: fear." You might want to have a look at my lesson on suspense and tension writing, because we cover lots of sentences like this. Colons also introduce quotes. So if you're doing an academic essay, and you're saying: "Idea, idea, idea, idea, idea", oo, now I need to take someone else's idea and write, and sort of put it in speech marks. Before you use that person's words, yup, you use the colon. Okay? So if I was writing an essay about Shakespeare, just before I used Shakespeare's words, I would put the colon. Okay, we're going to look at a passage now and we're going to think about when we should use a semi-colon and when we should use a colon.

So here we are with a little passage that I have just written for you. I'll read it out to you. As I'm reading it, I want you to think of where the semi-colons and colons should go. "You need to do three things to be successful in English, practice with native speakers, learn and revise your vocab, and master your grammar. It helps enormously to visit the U.K., you'll understand the culture. Together we can achieve fluency, together we can grow." Hmm. What do we think about that? Okay, so let's have a look. "You need to do three things to be successful in English", and then it starts saying what those things are. So what we have here is the start of a list. Remember: If you're introducing a list, you need to put a colon. There we are, a colon to introduce my list. Now we have three things that we need to do to get better at English. What do we do to separate items in a list? That's right, you put your semi-colon, so we'll just put a dot there, one there, and then you don't need one here. "It helps enormously to visit the U.K., you'll understand the culture." So, this here we're starting an explanation, we're giving an important reason, so I would say that a colon is required there. […]

[abdulmuti]

I wish I had an english teacher to: explain it brilliantly like you did. Thank you for the video.

[mohammeda.raqeeb]

First, you said, "you don't have to add a semicolon here because of and". Then in the example you made a semicolon after "and".
May you please explain why?

[chasingamurderer]

Wait, let me try this again: this was the best learning video; especially, the quiz at the end! thanks!

[sukarankaur]

I love your way of teaching It's brilliant! Thank you very much Benjamin. :)

[pemmialcantara]

these videos are extremely helpful. English has always been a straight A subject for me but all of a sudden I've been getting B's and I really want to do a double degree of journalism/law at uni so I need to get my english skills back up to par. My teacher told me to go back to basics and start writing more simplistically. I always used really complex structures and vocab so she marked me down because of that.

[SilmaIslam]

I have a question. As far as I remember, we don't use a semi-colon before a conjunction? Why did you use it? Is there any special rule for that?

[mariahjordan]

I loved this lesson it had everything i needed: short; easy; made sends and was fun.

[yazzenomar]

Your amazing hopefully I ace my huge test know thanks

[damilkk]

Your videos have helped me more than all my English teachers. Thanks

[naufilislam]

In this vast world of youtube Benjamin is my big apple. I love this teacher coz pedagogically he is perfect ten.

[fnntsum]

Thank you so much haha plan to use this for my aqa igcse exam later today!

[SamiSami-vbkl]

You're really brilliant in explaining.

[JohnShohel]

I've watched and I've been watching all of your videos on this channel for the last 2 months. I'm getting much improved in speaking English. I use Wakie or Opentalk to practice English. But native speakers aren't available there. I hope you will make more videos on how to get a standard form of RP accent. I really need it. Thanks so much.

Regards
John Shohel
Kushtia, Bangladesh

[naumananwar]

I have only one word for you: amazing.

[dudefromacrossthestreet]

Couldn’t a semicolon be used between U.K. And “you’ll”, as well? That one kind of confused me a little bit. I understand from the first sentence where it started a list after “English”.

[calebtolopa]

I would like the link video on SUSPENSION & TENSION writing plz. Thank you

[iUmarFarooqi]

Is this the first video in the series, Benjamin? Because I do a lot of writing work; on daily basis!

[rohit.kumar]

Is it correct to use semi colon after vocab because it is followed by 'and'???... Please reply me

[sharonwilliamswilliams]

I thought that you should only use a semicolon to separate list if there is at least one comma present (I'm referring to the first example.)

[khybermomand]

Thank you very much my dear teacher! I got it.