How to Use a Colon

1. Colons: How to
Use Them
See what I did there?

3. Reason 1: You want
to impress your
professors
• This is a sophisticated
punctuation mark. Use it
correctly, and you will
impress your reader as a
knowledgeable writer.

4. Reason 2: The second part of your
sentence clarifies or exemplifies the
first part
• Think of the colon as a flashing arrow pointing to
the second part of the sentence (Grammarly)
• This could be a list:
• Connie packed a variety of clothes for her trip to the
Arctic Circle: snowshoes, a warm jacket, and an evening
gown.
• Or it could simply emphasize your point:
• Connie planned to wear the evening gown when she saw
penguins: After all, they wore tuxedos.

5. But wait, couldn’t I use a
semicolon there?
• Semicolons link two closely related
complete ideas. Use them when the two
clauses are balanced.
• Colons emphasize the last clause. Use
them when you want the attention there.
• With colons, the second clause can be
complete or incomplete. If it’s complete, cap
it!

6. Reason 3: You are introducing a
quotation
• Connie often liked to quote Phillipe Cousteau: “The
world cannot live without the Arctic.”
• Hint: Reason #3 will come in handy when you are
writing your research papers and especially in
ENC1102!

7. Reason 4: Your paper has a
long, fancy title
• Welcome to academia! We have titles like this:
• Virtue’s Friends: The Politics of Friendship in Early
Modern English Women’s Writing
• You, too, can have a long title!
• Growing a Community: The Benefits of Community
Gardens in Low-Income Neighborhoods

8. Reason 5: You’re writing the
time
• Connie’s ship departed at 4:00 pm.

9. How Not to Use a Colon:
• Don’t use a colon to separate a subject from
its verb, a verb from its direct object, or a
preposition from its object
• Bad: “The two species of penguin that live
exclusively in the Arctic are: Emperor and
Adelie.
• Better: “Two species of penguin live
exclusively in the Arctic: Emperor and
Adelie.