Hey folks, I am trying to separate different objects in a compound predicate with semi-colons. Can someone tell me if it’s alright? Thanks!

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Development project often results in loss of right over land, and subsequently, displacement; degradation of the environment, and therefore, loss of livelihood and spread of diseases; and undue interference in the tribal culture, and consequently, loss of autonomy.

Technically, it looks to be correct. However, you have many, many transition words that normally would need semicolons (therefore and consequently) that you try to substitute commas with.

This makes it extremely hard to read. Even as a native speaker I had to read this probably 4-5 times to get what you were talking about! I would recommend changing it to something like this:

Development projects often result in loss of right over land and subsequent displacement; degradation of the environment and resulting loss of livelihood and spread of diseases; and undue interference in the tribal culture and the consequent loss of autonomy.

This doesn’t change the meaning of what you had, but it makes it much, much clearer. Instead of the 5 commas and transition words to confuse the reader, this only has the semicolons. Also, it gets rid of your grammar mistake at the beginning!

Hi koshta!

Your use of semicolons looks good. Whenever you list lengthy items, it can be useful to use semicolons instead of regular commas. I edited your passage further and moved commas so that they sound more natural:

“Development projects often result in loss of right over land and, subsequently, displacement; degradation of the environment and, therefore, loss of livelihood and the spread of diseases; and undue interference in tribal culture and, consequently, loss of autonomy.”

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