>I was taught that the semicolon is best used to
>separate main clauses with contrasting ideas --
>
>He went swimming; she did the dishes.
 
>
 
 
 
The semicolon is indeed one piece of punctuation that has changed in
relatively recent times according to handbook rules, but at least nowadays
I don't believe it's reserved just for contrasting independent clauses.
The only stricture is that the two clauses should be "closely related,"
which is really almost always the case when one clause follows another.  So
almost anything goes technically, though many people have strong opinions
about how 'closely related' the two clauses should be or how often students
can use the semicolon before they overuse it in a given paper (academics
seem to use it almost as much as periods!).
 
Larry Beason,Director
English Composition Program
Dept. of English
Eastern Washington University
Cheney WA 99004
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WAC Page: http://ewu66649.ewu.edu/WAC.html