Tardis:Semi-colon

Replacement for other types of "sentence glue"
Semicolons are largely a matter of personal preference. Many people never use semi-colons in their everyday writing, yet they can be quite correct in their punctuation. A semi-colon is largely an alternative to a conjunction or a full stop, generally used to suggest there's a fairly close, even causal, relationship between two sentences.


 * Correct: The Doctor didn't care; he was going whether the Brigadier liked it or not.
 * Correct: The Doctor didn't care. He was going whether the Brigadier liked it or not.
 * Correct: The Doctor didn't care, because he was going whether the Brigadier liked it or not.

All of these are correct. It's really just a stylistic choice that can help vary one's sentence construction in an article. What's not correct is:


 * Incorrect: The Doctor didn't care, he was going whether the Brigadier liked it or not.

For clarity in lists
If you're listing long series of things, semi-colons help make the border between listed items clearer. This can be vital if one's list include a lot of clauses set off by commas. Consider the following:


 * Correct: The Doctor was forced to remember his companions:  Leela, the one with the savage tongue; Amy, the girl who didn't want to grow up; Harry, the doctor who was an imbecile; Jamie, the man who had to forget his boyhood; and Barbara, the teacher who should never have come along at all.

Semi-colons help the reader understand where each of these descriptions end. Note, however, that if you start using semi-colons in a list, you must always use them, even if some of the items in the list are uncomplicated. Thus:


 * Correct: He appeared in Dallas with Larry Hagman; Dynasty; Coronation Street; EastEnders with Michelle Ryan, Wendy Richard and John Smith; and Last of the Summer Wine.

Although only one of the options here — EastEnders — actually required a semi-colon, they all get semi-colons for consistency.