English, as you already know is a universally accepted language as a medium of communication. It tends to help people hailing from different ethnicities and help them connect and continue the conversation. It is always applicable for the college students and universities which bring in international students from various backgrounds and help you carry out the negotiation smoothly.
But what will freak you out is your the grammar that comes following with all sort of operational functions and it is quite straightforward. O in today’s session we would be checking out the thing that confuses people while drafting some important document or writing a book. It is a colon. Yes! most of the young writers who have been wishing to pursue their career in writing are getting confused as to when and how to make use of the colon and not destroy the meaning of the sentence or sentence fragment.
It is important to learn as to how to use colons effectively and correctly. Along with that, there might be some other punctuation rules that can give your writing more clear.
5 Important Functions & Rules of Using Colon in a Sentence
If you wish to understand, then there are some rules which would help you to know how effectively colons can be used interchangeably.
1. Introducing an item or list
Colon can be used after a complete sentence or an independent clause. For example,
- Every person needs these three things in life: Food, Water and Basic Healthcare facilities.
- Last year, I visited some of the really romantic cities: London, Paris, New York, and Amsterdam.
2. Use of Colon In-Between Two Different Sentences
This is true when the second sentence or statement emphasis on illustrating the first statement.
For example:
I would be taking a trip back to Ireland and it would be the best trip of my life. You could see some of the most amazing terrains our Earth has to offer.
Here, the most important thing would be to capitalize the first word that comes after a colon or when the colon was introduced in the complete sentence. But people have adopted it as a new style rather than as a rule.
3. You can easily use bulleted points or numbered list
We have experienced that English is a spectacular language and has around 14 punctuation marks out of which ‘colon’ is the one which can be used with bulleted points.
4. Never Use Colon For Extended Quotation
You do not need to use a single quotation mark and indent it to the left of the margin.
For instance,
Hitler’s philosophy can be summed up in a book and can e distributed to all Germans.
In your writings, you need to eliminate the thought of conditions, limitations or any possibility of not manifesting the content.
5. You can always use a colon followed by a greeting
You can also consider greeting as salutation that is used while drafting a mail or something. It is used in all the business letters which contain the first name, last name or the title. You could see that it is either a colon or a comma. For example:
Whomsoever it may concern:
Now that we have known the 5 rules of using a colon we can eaisly move ahead to know how they are used in the correct manner as to not make any grammatical error.
As the English Grammar rule goes, using colon can be really good and straightforward. With this, you just have to remember that a colon is not a comma. It cannot be used interchangeably with comma. All these points would really be important for you to guide your writing methods.
Conclusion:
With colons and all the grammar rules, you might be getting along really good with English. Try to imbibe all the things by practicing daily and making it a habit. We would always be there to help you and you can share your thoughts in the comment section below.