Grammar Greatness: the Colon (no medical jokes, please).
Punctuation is simply how you make your writing read more like how you speak.
You use a colon : to pause before introducing related information (often introducing ideas, quotes, or lists), as well as introducing explanations and amplifying a point for emphasis.
Examples
- Croydon University excels in four core subjects: electronics, art history, materials science, and music technology.
- There are three things you need to understand about Bob: he hates cats, loves dogs, but keeps a llama in his bathroom.
- I ate in my grandmother’s kitchen for five days, and my stomach came to one conclusion: yuck!
- Dickens had the right idea when he said: “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
Category: Wizard of Words
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I have been working as a full-time author publishing fantasy and science fiction novels for HarperCollins for the last seven years.Subscribe
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