Punctuation, Part 1

The Semicolon
          I never truly understood how semicolons really worked.  I knew the basics of how they are supposed to transition two independent clause , but I never really used them.  The rules just seemed too complicated for me to use properly.  I knew it could add some sentence variety to my papers but I didn't want to use it incorrectly so I avoid them as much as possible.  One interesting that I read is how you can pace semicolons in a series containing internal punctuation.  That is significant to my writing because it could make parts of my writing much easier to understand.  All in all I understand much more about semicolons and feel a bit more confident using them.


The colon
       Unlike the semicolon, I understand how to use a colon properly.  However, I never really use it to start lists because I don't think it is necessary most of the time.  The only time I really use colons is for large lists that are necessary because in that situation the list is large enough that you need to show where it begins.  I thought there would be more uses for the colon but there only used for two things but its a punctuation rule that is there.


Brackets
       I have never used brackets in my writing because I never understood how to use them.  I would usually just get around the problem wit quotes sounding off by avoiding those quotes entirely.  Now in reading this section I learned how to use them properly.  Surely this type of punctuation will help my writing significantly.



Reflection:

I learned more about semi colons in Jake's paper because he successfully used them in this sentence "Whether the struggle involves making new friends, keeping old ones, or having the courage to go ask out that pretty girl across the room that you know is way out of your league; robots can help you to gain confidence, make a new friend, and learn how to interact in all of those situations that you never thought you could" .  In this sentence he uses the semi colon to correctly separate to differentiate ideas successfully and in reading this it helped me fell more confident about using semicolons.