SEMICOLON

Use semicolons instead of commas in a series of involved items that already contain commas:

            The winners came from three schools: Ellington School of the Arts, Washington, D.C.;

            Wheaton High School, Wheaton, Maryland; and Bishop Denis J. O'Connell High School,

            Arlington, Virginia.

Coordinate clauses not connected by and, but, or, nor, or for are separated by a semicolon. Use a semicolon in such a case even when a conjunctive adverb (however, moreover, nevertheless, etc.) is present:

            We ate; moreover, we enjoyed it.

A semicolon goes outside a quotation mark or a closing parenthesis.

In a main text consider rewriting a sentence that contains three or more semicolons. 

See also Adjectives and Adverbs, Punctuation of; Colon; Comma; PUNCTUATION, TYPEFACES, SERIES.