• FUNCTION:

  • Use colons to mean “note what follows” or “that is.”

  • Remember to put two spaces after the colon.

  • 1) One of the most common uses of a colon is to introduce a LIST of items.

    • EX:  Do the following activities for homework:  read the Narration chapter in your textbooks, rewrite your Description essay, and complete the Comma Splice exercises.

• 1) One of the most common uses of a colon is to introduce a LIST of items.

  • EX:  Do the following activities for homework:  read the Narration chapter in your textbooks, rewrite your Description essay, and complete the Comma Splice exercises.

  • *HOWEVER:

    • Do NOT use a colon after a LINKING VERB (is, am, are, was, were).

      • The winners of the contest are Michelle, Roland, and Gabrielle.

    • Do NOT use a colon after an INFINITIVE (to + verb).

      • John’s wife told him to bring his patience, his empathy, and his self-control to their counseling session.

    • Do NOT use a colon after a PREPOSITION (in, on, from, for, of).

      • Jerome arrived with Shirley, Baptista, Jacob, and Niccolo.

  • *K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Students)

    • To limit your confusion, only use colons after the expressions “the following” and “as follows”:

      • Get the following items at the store: milk, bread, and sugar.

      • Mary bitterly confessed to John, “The truth is as follows: I don’t like the way you dress, the way you speak, and the way you kiss!”

• 2) The second most common usage of a colon is to set up a BLOCK QUOTE. Long formal quotes will be capitalized.

  • EX:  Perhaps the most recognizable soliloquy from a Shakespearean tragedy belongs to Hamlet, who, overwhelmed by his current situation, contemplates suicide:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd. (Hamlet 3.1.64-98)

• 3) A colon is also used much like an APPOSITIVE, to clarify what came before it. In this case, the colon is used to set up either a group of words or an independent clause that explains (elucidates, clarifies, completes, rephrases) the prior independent clause.
  • EX:
    • When the school board began to bewail monetary problems, Estaban knew it meant one thing:  school closings. (group of words)
    • Some students dislike the practice of granting incompletes:  they feel that such a custom rewards laziness and poor time management. (a second independent clause)
       
  • * While some handbooks suggest capitalizing the second independent clause, common practice reserves capitalizing the second clause only  if it is a long, formal quotation; otherwise, you need not capitalize the first letter of the second clause.

• 4) Other uses of a colon include the following:
  • to separate titles and subtitles:
    • Stephen King: The Master of Horror
  • to express time:
    • At approximately 3:15 in the afternoon, the space shuttle landed in Florida.
  • to cite a law or Biblical passage:
    • According to John 3:16, God requires only our faith, not our works.
  • to end a salutation of a business letter:
    • To Whom It may Concern:
    • Dear Sir or Madam:
  • to separate the place of publication and the publisher in a bibliographic entry:
    • Housenick, Stephen A. Shakespearean Tragedy:  Maimed Rites. New York: Random, 2006.
  • to separate the volume and the number of a periodical:
    • Shakespearean Critic 26:3
  • to separate the volume and the page number in a periodical:
    • Shakespeare Weekly 26: 289-91