hi everyone and welcome back to my channel Learn Academic English
in today's video I'm continuing my series about sentences with a video about how to use semicolons
if you have not watched the other videos in this series you may want to go back and check out
the video about dependent and independent clauses sentence fragments how to use different kinds of
conjunctions including conjunctive adverbs so today we'll focus on this punctuation mark the
semicolon this is something that's really useful for you to know if you are needing to use English
in your school or work because semicolons are used in more formal situations we almost never use them
in casual or informal writing but in work memos or very formal writing essay writing for school we do
sometimes use them so first let's take a quick look at what an independent clause is because
that's something that you'll need to know in order to understand the rules an independent clause is
basically a sentence an independent clause has a subject and a verb sometimes we can take a clause
and we can combine it with another clause to make a longer sentence semicolons have four basic rules
some of them are more common than others I'll go through those rules one by one and I'll show you
some examples and then at the end of the video I'll give you a little quiz so you can check
your knowledge so first the most common way to use a semicolon is to join two independent clauses and
there are two ways that we can do that first we can join two independent clauses that have related
ideas so you're going to think of the semicolon here as working in the same way that the word and
would work you're going to join two clauses that have similar or very closely related ideas
for example “Soccer is the world's most popular sport; people around the world watch and play it.”
so here we have two independent clauses the first clause has a subject and a verb and some other
words at the end and then the second clause has a subject and a verb actually two verbs so here
what we're doing is instead of putting a period and starting a new sentence we can see that these
ideas are very closely related they're similar they sound like we could join them with the word
and so instead of making two sentences we make one long sentence by joining them with a semicolon
the other thing that we could do here is we could make what's called a compound sentence by using a
comma and the word and but because we might use the sentence in a more formal situation
we're going to choose to use the semicolon here now you want to be careful because we don't use
a semicolon when the clauses don't have a closely related meaning for example
if the clauses should be combined with the word but which shows different ideas or so
which shows a result or or which shows a choice then we would not use a semicolon for example
“Soccer is the world's most popular sport; it is not as popular as American football in the U.S..”
so these clauses are talking about the same topic about soccer but if you look closely they should
be joined with the word but or however because they show difference or contrast they're showing
two different ideas that around the world soccer is the most popular sport but in the United States
American football is more popular so here a semicolon is not a good way to join these clauses
instead we should use a comma and but or we could use a semicolon with the word however
we need to show contrast if we don't include a conjunction that shows contrast
then there's some meaning that is missing let's see another example
“Soccer is the world's most popular sport; pro soccer players earn extraordinary salaries.” so
here which meaning is the best way to connect these clauses would you choose and but or or so
I would choose the word so the reason is that the first clause shows the cause the reason soccer
is the world's most popular sport and then what happens next what's the result what's the effect
the effect is that professional players earn very large salaries so here if we use only a semicolon
some of the meaning is missing therefore we should use a comma with so or a semicolon
and then the word therefore we need the conjunction to connect those two clauses
clearly okay let's move on to the second rule the second rule is that we can join two independent
clauses with a conjunctive adverb and we saw a little preview of this in my previous examples
for example ‘Soccer is the world's most popular sport; however, in the united states American
football is more popular.” so again we have two independent clauses with a subject and a verb and
the second one the subject is American football and the verb is is now here these two clauses
show difference or contrast opposite ideas to join them well we're going to use the conjunctive
adverb however and when we use a conjunctive adverb we can use a semicolon however comma
I have another video all about how to use conjunctive adverbs so if you'd like to know more
about how to use therefore in addition for example etc you can check out that video okay let's move
on to number three to join a series that includes commas so let's take a look at an example and then
I'll explain it “Soccer is especially popular in South America; Europe, where many famous players
live; and Africa.” so we're going to call this a series because we're joining one two three things
usually when we have a series like this we join them with commas for example I love ice cream,
chocolate cake, and brownies but this series doesn't work like that because
inside this one we have a comma and we have this small clause here that describes Europe
so because we have a comma inside here we're going to separate these three things with semicolons
this makes sense if you replace these with commas and you'll start to feel that it's confusing if
we say “Soccer is especially popular in South America, Europe, where many famous players live,
and Africa.” the commas then become confusing because they're separating different things
so it's better to separate the series with semicolons finally number four to join two
independent clauses that have a comma inside or that are very long that are lengthy for example
“Soccer is a team sport, not individual; so it builds community, trust, and sportsmanship.”
if you're not familiar with the word sportsmanship that means the quality of playing sports fairly
of going out there and playing sports with a good attitude and being nice to the other players so if
you look at this sentence you can see that we have two parts soccer is a team sport not individual
and then we have a second part it builds community trust and sportsmanship inside each of these parts
we have commas so here we have one comma and then in this part we have two commas for this series
as a result we are not going to use a comma here because we already have so many commas in
the sentence so to separate the sentence clearly we're going to use a semicolon however I need to
add a little warning here which is that this rule I would say is more flexible a lot of people would
use a comma here instead of a semicolon I wouldn't say that that's an error so again this rule would
be more flexible I would say this one is not so common okay so let's go to some examples and we'll
take a quiz and we'll test your knowledge of these four rules so let's look at some example sentences
and see where we can add semicolons to make these sentences correct first “Soccer is my
son's favorite sport my husband loves it too.” so is there a place here where we can add a semicolon
there is this would follow the first rule that we can join two closely related clauses with a
semicolon two independent clauses and if we look here we can see that this is an
independent clause it has a subject and a verb and the second one also has a subject and verb
they are closely related ideas and so we can use a semicolon there we could also use a comma
and the word and okay number two “Neymar, one of the most famous players, plays in Europe but he
was born and raised in brazil.” so this is rule number three that we saw on the previous part
so if you look carefully you can see that here Neymar is the subject of this clause and we
have the verb plays in Europe okay so that's the first part of the sentence I'm going to make a
line there to show that but inside this first part we have commas in the second part of the sentence
we have the word but and then we have the verb born and raised was born and raised so we have
two independent clauses we're joining them with but usually when we join with but we use a comma
however because there are already commas here we can use a semicolon to join those two clauses
so again this would be to make the sentence more clear because we already have commas inside
we can use a semicolon there I am going to give you the warning though that I mentioned before
that some people would use a comma here however other people will choose to use a semicolon
for more clarity all right number three “The World Cup takes place every four years however,
the preparations for this event never stop.”
so here we also have two clauses and we're combining them with however however is a
conjunctive adverb so the rule tells us that we put a semicolon the conjunctive adverb and a comma
this is very common and it is a rule like you really do need to use a semicolon here
or you could use a period and a capital H to make a new sentence all right number four
“Soccer builds endurance, strength, and teamwork therefore, it's a great choice for children.”
so what do we have here well we have a pretty long first clause that includes commas to make a series
then we have the conjunctive adverb therefore and we have another clause with a subject and verb
we're going to use a semicolon here to connect them
and next in the U.S. the most popular sports are basketball so that's going to be our number one
played with teams of five soccer played with teams of 11. and football also played with 11 on
the field so what do we have here here we have a series that includes commas inside it so remember
I told you that when we have a series like I love ice cream cake and brownies we separate the series
with commas but when the series includes commas inside like basketball played with teams of five
so played with teams of five is a reduced adjective clause that describes basketball
so this first thing here basketball includes commas inside so to join these things we're
going to need to use semicolons otherwise we have too many commas and it just becomes confusing
so where are we going to put our semicolons can you check
so we're going to put the first semicolon after the first thing which ends right here okay
we're going to change this comma to a semicolon and one more we're going to put it right here
before the third one so let's take a look at the sentence again
in the U.S. the most popular sports are basketball played with teams of five
soccer played with teams of 11 and football also played with 11 on the field so those are the four
rules of using semicolons I would say that the most common or the most important one for you
to know is this one here that joins two clauses with a conjunctive adverb it's very very common
especially in academic writing for school another one that you should also know is joining two
independent clauses with closely related ideas so instead of using comma and you can use a semicolon
and another one that is pretty important is joining a series when the series includes commas
inside this is to make the sentence more clear because there are already so many commas so we use
semicolons to join the three things so I hope that this video helped you to understand the rules of
using semicolons please check out the other videos about how to write clear sentences in English
and check the description box below because I'm going to leave a link to a handout that has these
rules for you you can keep that to help you study at home don't forget to give this video a like if
you found it helpful I appreciate your support so much subscribe if you haven't done so already and
let me know in the comments below if you have any questions take care and I'll see you next time!