Colons : Improving your Writing with Sherlock Holmes

This series has been focusing on an interesting way to improve writing by using a short story about Sherlock Holmes.

Today's post is about a rarely used punctuation mark: the colon. Students often shy away from using it, but as an English tutor I teach this skill as it can really improve the complexity and elegance of anyone's writing style.

The simplest way to use a colon is to introduce a list without having to use extra words.

Example

Sherlock Holmes had a notebook, a pen and a magnifying glass.

Have a go - or ask your child to have a go, if you are helping them - at writing some examples of your own, using a colon to introduce a short list.  I’ve helped you with the first two.

1. I looked around his room and noticed three different things : ..

2. On his table were…

3.

If you'd like to know more about using colons and semicolons, I've just published a new ebook in the Hartland English Guides series, called A Dash of Punctuation : Colons and Semicolons, available on Amazon priced only £1.99.

You can find out more about it here.