Cracking The SAT Premium

HALF-STOP

• Colon


• Long dash

GO

• Comma


• No punctuation

FANBOYS stands  for For,

And,    Nor,    But,    Or, Yet,

and So.

STOP    punctuation can link    only    complete    ideas.

HALF-STOP   punctuation must    be  preceded    by  a   complete    idea.

GO  punctuation can link    anything    except  two complete    ideas.

Let’s see how these work. Here is a complete idea:

Samantha    studied for the SAT.

Notice that we’ve already used one form of STOP punctuation at the end of this sentence: a period.

Now, if we want to add a second complete idea, we’ll keep the period.

Samantha    studied for the SAT.    She ended   up  doing   really  well    on  the test.

In this case, the period is linking these two complete ideas. But the nice thing about STOP punctuation is
that you can really use any of the punctuation in the list to do the same thing, so we could also say this:

Samantha    studied for the SAT;    she ended   up  doing   really  well    on  the test.

What the list of STOP punctuation shows us is that essentially, a period and a semicolon are the same
thing. We could say the same for the use of a comma plus one of the FANBOYS.

Samantha    studied for the SAT,    and she ended   up  doing   really  well    on  the test.

You can also use HALF-STOP punctuation to separate two complete ideas, so you could say

Samantha    studied for the SAT:    she ended   up  doing   really  well    on  the test.

or

Samantha    studied for the SAT—she ended   up  doing   really  well    on  the test.