Colons

Colons can be used to improve sentences and make your writing more sound. Although you won’t use too many colons in your blog, it’s always a good idea to know their function so that you can use them when you need to.

Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of items.

Example: There are only three great books you need to read: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Beowulf.

Example: We need to get some things from the store: apples, carrots, chips, and salsa.

Use a colon between two independent clauses when the second clause elaborates on the first or explains it.

Example: Being a cheerleader is not just for fun: it is a sport.

Use a colon to separate hours from minutes without any spaces, to indicate proportion with a single space between the numbers and the colon, and a double colon to indicate ratio.

Example: It is now 10:24. The proportion is 5 : 1. The ratio is 5 : 6 :: 1 : 3.

Colons can be used to introduce a long quotation or a question.

Example: Hamlet’s soliloquy starts like this:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.”

Example: This is what I want to know: Are you going to take out the trash or am I going to have to break it over your head?

Don’t litter your blog with colons because they can be seen as unnecessary punctuation, but give them a try.

Written by Patricia Vennes from Writer's Rants
Posted on August 10th, 2009 and filed under Writing
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