Colons vs.

semicolons: What's the

difference?

The colon causes much confusion for several reasons: British and American
writers use it differently, people often confuse it with the semicolon, and
grammarians can’t seem to agree on whether to capitalize words that
follow it.

For some time, the British have been using a colon where most Americans
would use a semicolon. Many grammarians insist on a subtle difference
between the two marks, however, no matter which side of the Atlantic you
live on. According to this train of thought, semicolons should link
independent clauses when there is a need for more separation than a
comma would provide but not quite so much as a period would impose.
Semicolons should introduce evidence or a reason for the preceding
statement; for example, this sentence appropriately uses a semicolon.

A colon, on the other hand, should be used for a stronger, more direct
relationship. It should provide emphasis, an example, or an explanation.
One could make an argument for the use of a colon, rather than a semi-
colon, at the end of the previous paragraph (most British writers would
probably use one; most American writers would probably choose a
semicolon).

Whether you decide to use a colon or a semicolon, just remember this:

Never capitalize the first word after a semicolon, unless it would be
capitalized under any circumstances, as in the second example here:

The race would be postponed; the winds were already dangerously gusty.

My heart sank; Anna still hadn’t come into view.

As for the colon, reasonable grammarians disagree, but you
should only consider capitalizing the first word after the colon if it is a
proper noun or introduces an independent clause, which is a phrase that
could stand alone as its sentence. For example, this sentence contains an
independent clause after the colon, so the word after the colon is
capitalized:

The journal team was excited: Never before had such an important story
appeared, and it was published in Cell!

However, if what follows a colon is just a sentence fragment, not an

independent clause, lowercase is needed:

The studies took place in the following animals: mice, cats, fruit flies, and
alligators.

It was the thing that would make her love him: his Current
Biology manuscript.

Colon: a crafty piece of punctuation that is often confused with the

semicolon.

Now for the gray area: Some grammarians say you should always capitalize
the word after a colon if it introduces an independent clause, whereas
others say it's optional. The latter group holds that you must capitalize if
what follows the colon is a direct quote or multiple sentences but that,
otherwise, lowercasing is permissible. The Associated Press
Stylebook (used by most journalists) and my two favorite grammar sources
(Working with Words by Brian S. Brooks et al. and The Handbook of Good
English by Edward D. Johnson) insist on capitalization for consistency,
whereas The Chicago Manual of Style (a resource used by many book
editors) falls into the optional-capital camp.
Finally, let's briefly discuss when not to use a colon. Colons should not
interrupt an otherwise complete sentence. For example:

INCORRECT: The ingredients included: salt, butter, flour, and just a hint of
rosemary.

CORRECT: The ingredients included salt, butter, flour, and just a hint of
rosemary.

CORRECT: The ingredients included the following: salt, butter, flour, and
just a hint of rosemary.

A quick and handy test is to remove the colon and ask whether the
sentence would still make sense. In the first example above, the answer is
yes, so the colon should go. But in the second example, removing the colon
introduces confusion, so we need to keep it.