Week 4 Lab - The Semicolon

 For my Story Laboratory this week I decided to watch TedEd Videos. 

The most interesting video I watched was How to use a semicolon by Emma Bryce. 

I decided to choose this specific assignment for Story Laboratory because it would be extremely useful for this class. The semicolon is a punctuation mark that is "stronger than a comma and less final than a period," according to Emma Bryce. It has particular and major tasks. The first one is to make a sentence filled with many commas more clear, thus clarifying ideas.A semicolon separates ideas, but also builds connections between them because they all relate to the same main thing.The second task of the semicolon is to tie together independent clauses, which are sentences that can stand on their own. Semicolons make these short independent clauses look and sound better because once again, they are related in some way. If a paper was written using simple independent clauses then the writing would be perceived as monotonous. According to the video, "semicolons bring fluidity and variation to writing." 

An example used in the video - 

Without semicolon:

Semicolons were once a great mystery to me. I had no idea where to put them.   

With semicolon:

Semicolons were once a great mystery to me; I had no idea where to put them. 

Semicolons can't be used just anywhere with independent clauses. There are two rules to use them correctly. The first rule is that a semicolon should only be used if it is connecting independent clauses that ARE related in some way. The second rule on using semicolons is that they cannot be placed before a coordinating conjunction like but, and, for, nor, or so. Those coordinating conjunctions should be used with commas. Overall, a semicolon can provide clarity, force, and style. It is also really useful to create a variety in sentences throughout a writing assignment. 

An example of how not to use a semicolon:

Semicolons were once a great mystery to me; I'd really like a sandwich. 

An example used in the video - 

Without semicolon:

Semicolons were once a great mystery to me. I had no idea where to put them.   

With semicolon:

Semicolons were once a great mystery to me; I had no idea where to put them. 

Semicolon from an article in patheos.com by Paul Asay

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