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I'm not very confident or familiar with the use of semicolons. Hopefully someone here could help me out. I'm wondering is this sentence uses the semicolon properly:

Leadership communication skills, on the other hand, focus on the psychological aspects of communication; inspiring and motivating stakeholders with the confident delivery of mission, vision and values.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Sven Yargs
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Hanky
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    I would not use a semicolon in your example sentence. The clause "inspiring and motivating stakeholders with the confident delivery of mission, vision and values" is not an independent clause, which I would have expected it to be if the semicolon were a suitable punctuation mark. Essentially the semicolon is too strong for the situation; a comma is all you need. I suspect that the semicolon appeals to you primarily because there are multiple commas elsewhere in the sentence. But if comma overload feels like a serious problem, I recommend breaking the wording into two freestanding sentences. – Sven Yargs Apr 04 '16 at 18:43
  • ... For example: "Leadership communication skills, on the other hand, focus on the psychological aspects of communication. They inspire and motivate stakeholders with the confident delivery of mission, vision and values." By the way, your question borders on proofreading advice on the one hand or on being excessively broad (what is the right way to use semicolons?) on the other. Hence, it may be closed. – Sven Yargs Apr 04 '16 at 18:47
  • The semicolon seems to be introducing example aspects, which would take a colon. – AmI Apr 04 '16 at 20:04
  • All I know is that this ;) means that the associated comment is very witty. – Hot Licks Apr 04 '16 at 21:33

1 Answers1

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Semicolons are used to separate independent clauses; they can also be used before introducing a clause connector; for example, if I wanted to use this sentence, I could use a semicolon the way I did. I hope it can help you.

Jhoseth Rodriguez
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    A quick check is to imagine both sides of the semicolon as separate sentences. If they can't stand on their own as complete sentences, a semicolon is not correct. – Jacktose Apr 04 '16 at 22:23
  • I agree, but sometimes people cannot tell one from the other. You need to read your sentences a couple of times to know if they make sense to you. – Jhoseth Rodriguez Apr 04 '16 at 22:24
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    Hello, Jhoseth. People asking questions on ELU should first check whether or not they can find a previous version of their question, especially when it is very likely to have been asked before (as here). Similarly, people should not answer obvious candidates for duplicates before doing a quick check. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '16 at 22:47