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Question

Difficulty: EasySemicolons

The following sentence contains two independent clauses that are closely related. What punctuation mark should be placed in the blank to grammatically join these two clauses into a single sentence?

Answer:The astronomer pointed her telescope toward the night sky 【;】 she immediately spotted the rings of Saturn.

Answer

A semicolon is the correct punctuation mark to join these two independent clauses.
A semicolon is correct because it grammatically links two closely related independent clauses without the use of a coordinating conjunction.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the clauses on both sides of the blank.
The clause before the blank ('The astronomer pointed her telescope toward the night sky') and the clause after the blank ('she immediately spotted the rings of Saturn') are both independent clauses because each can stand alone as a complete sentence.
Identifying the clause type is necessary to determine the proper punctuation rules to apply.
2
Select the correct punctuation mark to connect the two independent clauses without any coordinating conjunctions.
Use a semicolon to separate the clauses.
Two independent clauses that are closely related and not joined by a coordinating conjunction (like 'and', 'but', or 'so') must be separated by a semicolon.

Key Concept

Using a semicolon to link two independent clauses
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Topics

Semicolons

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