Introduction

When the second sentence is closely connected to the first clause—and not simply tangentially—and when the focus is on the second clause, two independent clauses can be separated by a colon. The colon is a bit softer than the period but a little harsher than the semicolon, however you may also use a semicolon or a period between two separate yet linked clauses.

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When to use

The most common use of the semicolon is to join two independent clauses without using a conjunction like and.

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Do you use a capital letter after a semicolon? The general answer is no. A semicolon should be followed by a capital letter only if the word is a proper noun or an acronym.

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We can go to the museum to do some research; Mondays are pretty quiet there.

Remember, semicolons are not interchangeable with commas or periods. Instead, they’re somewhere in between: stronger than a comma but not quite as divisive as a period. Sounds pretty cunning to us.

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Conclusion

You can use a semicolon to join two closely related independent clauses. Let’s put that another way. The group of words that comes before the semicolon should form a complete sentence, the group of words that comes after the semicolon should form a complete sentence, and the two sentences should share a close, logical connection:

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I ordered a cheeseburger for lunch; life’s too short for counting calories.

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Money is the root of all evil; I don’t believe the reverse is necessarily true.

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Martha has gone to the library; Andrew has gone to play soccer.

Notice that the letter following the semicolon is not capitalized. The examples above are both made up of two complete, grammatically correct sentences glued together. Yes, that means there are six total sentences up there—and thanks to the semicolon, only two capital letters. You can also download our app from the playstore or visit our website.

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