Colons

 The (Cute) Colons Page:    :

Hint: Punctuation colons have nothing to do with digestion.

Usually.

If you do the internet a lot, especially chat rooms and email, you may already use the colon in a way unheard of before computers:  you use them to represent eyes when you want to express happy/unhappy feelings.  :)  :(

You must look at them sideways for the effect to work.

If you want it to look like a wink, use a semicolon.  ;)

But our ancestors who invented the colon had something very different in mind: a warning.

The colon announces that the reader is about to get an explanation, examples, and/or clarification.

Like this:

If you want to date her/him, you must; be up to date with personal hygiene, be moderately wealthy, know all of the lyrics to every rap ever written.

Create some.  Invent a couple of sentences in which you need to draw attention to what follows the colon.  You can do it.  C'mon! 

Please do one more thing: look over some of your writing, and find a place or two to add a colon followed by some explanatory words.

In terms of helping your writing, using colons this way may help make your writing more specific.

Teachers like that.

To return to Step Two, click: Step Two.