Central and East European Studies

2. Colons and semi-colons

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Colons and semi-colons, best thought of as lying between a comma (small pause) and a full stop (major pause), have distinct, non-interchangeable functions.

Colons have two major uses:

  1. to introduce a list (as here)
  2. to separate two parts of a sentence, the second part explaining or expanding on the first part.

Examples:

Colons should never be followed by a hyphen, and the first word that follows the colon is not capitalised in British English unless capitalised anyway, for example an acronym like EU (European Union), or a proper noun (i.e. a name).

If you wonder whether a colon is appropriate, it sometimes helps to ask if it could be substituted with 'that is or for example':

Semi-colons have two major uses: to link two complete sentences that are closely related (i.e. both parts of the sentence have subjects and verbs); and to separate items in a list if the items are long.

N.B. Semi-colons which link sentences together could often be replaced by a full stop.

TaskTask TypeDifficulty
Task 1Multiple choiceMore Challenging
Task 2Multiple choiceEasier
Task 3Multiple choiceMore Challenging
Task 4Free textModerate
Task 5Free textEasier
Task 6Multiple choiceEasier