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Question

Difficulty: EasySemicolons

A writer is revising the sentence below to connect two closely related ideas. What punctuation mark must be placed in the blank to grammatically join the two independent clauses?

Answer:The local bakery is famous for its sourdough bread【;】 customers line up down the block every morning to buy a fresh loaf.

Answer

A semicolon (;) must be used to join the two independent clauses.
A semicolon is required to join the two independent clauses because they are closely related in meaning and there is no coordinating conjunction to connect them.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the structure of the two clauses on either side of the blank.
The clause before the blank ('The local bakery is famous for its sourdough bread') and the clause after the blank ('customers line up down the block every morning to buy a fresh loaf') are both independent clauses.
Each clause contains a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought, meaning each could stand alone as a complete sentence.
2
Determine the appropriate punctuation to connect two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction.
A semicolon is the correct punctuation mark to join these two clauses.
A semicolon is used to connect two closely related independent clauses that are not joined by a coordinating conjunction (such as 'and', 'but', or 'so').

Key Concept

A semicolon is used to link two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.
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Topics

Semicolons

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