human
I'm a little confused about when I should use a colon versus a semicolon. Can you help?
assistant
A colon is used to separate independent clauses within a sentence, while a semicolon is used to separate two closely related independent clauses that are not joined by a conjunction. For example, the following sentence uses a colon: "The dog ran through the park; it was fun." The following sentence uses a semicolon: "The dog ran through the park; it was fun; and then it ate a stick."