To understand the principal use of the semicolon, you must be able to recognize a simple sentence. Here's why: when you join two simple sentences together (making a compound sentence) the punctuation between them becomes a big deal.
Two simple sentences: Plato has little respect for artists. He would not encourage artistic representations in an ideal society. (Note the PERIOD between these simple sentences.)
The question: If two sentences are combined into a single sentence, what takes the place of the period between them?
The answer: It depends!
It depends on whether you also use one of these words: and, but, yet, so, for, or, nor. Of course you know these words and have used them oEften. They are called coordinating conjunctions.
Plato has little respect for artists, so he would not encourage artistic representations in an ideal society.When you do not use a coordinating conjunction to make the connection, use a semicolon.
Plato has little respect for artists; he would not encourage artistic representations in an ideal society.
When simple sentences are combined to form a single sentence, the original simple sentences are called main clauses. The rule: use a semicolon to separate closely related main clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction.
It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be a woman-manly or man-womanly.
--Virginia Woolf
Every organized being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew.
--Frederick Engels
Sometimes you may use one of the following words after a semicolon: therefore, however, consequently, subsequently, in addition, moreover (and similar others). You know them, too. They are called conjunctive adverbs--they are not coordinating conjunctions. They do not affect the punctuation of compound sentences. If there is no coordinating conjunction between the clauses, use the semicolon.
I ordered the concert tickets by mail; therefore, I didn't have to stand in line.
The Common Comma Splice
Do not use a comma between main clauses unless you also use a coordinating conjunction. If you do include the coordinating conjunction, you commit the intolerable error called a comma splice:
I ordered the concert tickets by mail, therefore, I didn't have to stand in line.
"Therefore" and the like are NOT coordinating conjunctions! Writers, however, will occasionally use a semicolon with a coordinating conjunction if the clauses are long or internally punctuated. Getting complicated? Not really. It's a reasonable principle:
The general point of view is that English is an illogical, chaotic language, unsuited for clear thinking; and it is easy to understand this view, for no other European language admits of such shoddy treatment. Yet . . . none other admits of such poetic exquisiteness.
--Robert Graves and Alan Hodge
If you will look at the main clauses of your sentences (where periods might go) and recognize the conjunctions (or lack of them), you will use semicolons and commas correctly!
We organize time and myth with music; we mark our lives by it. Music is the way that our memories sing to us across time.
--Lance Morrow
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
--Oscar Wilde
Cultural revolution is not only rapid; it is also readily reversible because its products are not coded in our genes.
--Stephen Jay Gould
No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomenon; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all.
--Thomas Kuhn
Pay the thunder no mind; listen to the birds.
--Eubie Blake
The characters wheelchair resembles a directors chair; with a long lens he spies on his neighbors (seen through the rectangular "screens" of their open windows); he gives them names and imagines little stories about their lives.
--Donald Spoto
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