Re: Avoid the Semicolon in Tech Writing?

Subject: Re: Avoid the Semicolon in Tech Writing?
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 18:24:10 -0700

dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com wrote:

If the semicolon is used correctly, the reader won't even notice it.

Respectfully, duck soup (well, you started with "Horsefeathers." Next, you can respond with "A Night at the Opera").


In my own style guides, there are even constructions that *require* a semicolon, particularly preceding "otherwise" and its variants:

In other words, you choose to use a semi-colon. But English is a flexible language, and there's almost always several ways to construct the same sentence.


* Blah blah; if not, blah blah blah.

You couldn't change any of those to periods and still have good English sentences.


Sure you could. All you have to do is to watch the sentence structure to the right of the period.

And if by "good" you mean "grammatically correct," why do you necessarily need complete sentences in technical documentation?


Semicolons are also required in lists in which any element comprises another list:

* Your choices are A; B, C, and D; or E.

You could easily write "A, B and C and D, or E. " You could also write "A, all of B,C, and D, or E."

You could also make it clearer by formatting it this way:

Your choices are:

- A
or
- B, C, D
or
-E

Admittedly, you may not have the option of a bullet list if space is limited, but the point is that you have alternatives.

You have every right to use the style guides you choose, but don't pretend that your choices are necessities.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield

"Comes a heat wave, you can go down to the shore,
Comes a summon, you can hide behind the door,
Comes love, nothing can be done."
-Lew Brown, Sammy Stept, and Charles Tobias






References:
Re: Avoid the Semicolon in Tech Writing?: From: Sean Brierley
Re: Avoid the Semicolon in Tech Writing?: From: dmbrown

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