A colon is a type of punctuation mark (:).
It serves to emphasize something in a sentence, usually. You can think of a colon as a highlighter. This is because most of the time, you do not have to use a colon. Instead, you choose to use the colon because it clearly separates the description of what you are talking about and the actual thing.
In a sentence that has a colon, you have two parts, the sentence half before the colon, and the one that comes after. The one that is before the colon is always an introduction. It describes what you are talking about in the sentence, and gives the reader all the details they need to know about it.
This first part is also a complete thought, written most of the time as a complete sentence. The second part is merely something that helps support the first part of the sentence. Often, it contains a list of examples of things that are described in the first part of the sentence.
Because it is simply a list, it usually is not a complete thought or a complete sentence. See the following example:
- I am craving so much of the food from my home country: grilled chicken, potatoes au gratin, corn chips, and guacamole!
Note that this example follows the general rule, with a complete sentence at the beginning of the sentence (before the colon) and a list after the colon.
In the first part, I describe what the main idea of the sentence is. I crave food from my home country. This is a complete sentence by itself, and it would make sense if I added nothing to the end of it. However, I want to emphasize some of the examples of food that I really miss.
For that reason, I have the colon and the list that follows, which includes four foods. (The number of examples in the second part of the sentence does not matter. There can be only one, in which case you really are highlighting that example, or multiple as in this sentence.)
Colons are also used for time (12:30 is for twelve o’clock and 30 minutes after that) and ratios (1:2 means that there is one part of the first thing for every two parts of the second thing).
Punctuation Marks – Quotation Marks – Question Mark
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