How to list things after a colon

Although rarely used compared to commas and semicolons, a colon (:) is convenient for listing items, words, or phrases. A colon is written like a stack of two periods and can be read as “note what follows.”

How to Use a Colon:

Here’s a quick guide on how to use a colon: 

1. Use a colon before a series of items, especially after phrases like as follows or the following.

• Joey’s favorite food is as follows: sandwich, pizza, and baked macaroni and cheese.
• This is my schedule on Sunday: morning jog around the village, online meeting at lunchtime, and virtual church fellowship in the evening.

NOTE: Do not capitalize the words following the colon, unless it’s a proper noun or another independent clause or sentence. 

• My favorite colors are as follows: pink, teal, and yellow.
• Isabel was faced with a challenge: Ask for financial help from the man who betrayed her.

2. Use a colon after an independent clause for emphasis or clarification. 

• His mother loves decorating the house: She studied interior design in college.

NOTE: Use a colon to introduce a quotation after an independent clause.

• He was reminded of his favorite Bible verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” [The colon that introduced a quote is interchangeable with a comma. It’s up to you which to use.]
• She remembers what his Philosophy professor always says: Choice is an illusion. [Here, a comma in place of the colon is not an option.] 

Related Reading: Quotation Marks – Separating Words & Phrases

3. Use a colon to separate items when writing the time and after the salutation of a formal letter.

• I expect him to arrive before 4:30 P.M. 
• Dear Ms. Marcelo:

Practice:

Insert the necessary colon or colons in each sentence:

1. I cannot attend the 8 30 A.M. and 2 30 P.M. workshop. 
2. Here are my favorite sitcoms Friends, The Big Bag Theory, and Brooklyn 99. 
3. When asked about love, he usually quotes Paulo Coelho “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
4. She has read a lot of books, including the following Flowers for Algernon, Angels and Demons, and The Lovely Bones.
5. Here’s what you can drink other than water tea, coffee, fruit shake, and beer.

Answers:

1. I cannot attend the 8:30 A.M. and 2:30 P.M. workshop. 
2. Here are my favorite sitcoms: Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and Brooklyn 99. 
3. When asked about love, he usually quotes Paulo Coelho: “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
4. She has read a lot of books, including the following: Flowers for Algernon, Angels and Demons, and The Lovely Bones.
5. Here’s what you can drink other than water: tea, coffee, fruit shake, and beer.

Thank you for reading. We hope it’s effective! Always feel free to revisit this page if you ever have any questions about how to use a colon.

The colon (:) seems to bewilder many people, though it's really rather easy to use correctly, since it has only one major use. But first please note the following: the colon is never preceded by a white space; it is always followed by a single white space in normal use, and it is never, never, never followed by a hyphen or a dash — in spite of what you might have been taught in school. One of the commonest of all punctuation mistakes is following a colon with a completely pointless hyphen.

The colon is used to indicate that what follows it is an explanation or elaboration of what precedes it. That is, having introduced some topic in more general terms, you can use a colon and go on to explain that same topic in more specific terms. Schematically:

More general: more specific

A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence; what follows the colon may or may not be a complete sentence, and it may be a mere list or even a single word. A colon is not normally followed by a capital letter in British usage, though American usage often prefers to use a capital. Here are some examples:

[Explains what the problem is.]

[Explains what the clear situation is.]

[Identifies the one thing she was sure of.]

[Explicates the golden rule.]

[Identifies the friends in question.]

[Explains why we found it easily.]

[Identifies the post in question.]

Very occasionally, the colon construction is turned round, with the specifics coming first and the general summary afterward:

Like all inverted constructions, this one should be used sparingly.

While you're studying these examples, notice again that the colon is never preceded by a white space and never followed by anything except a single white space.

You should not use a colon, or any other mark, at the end of a heading which introduces a new section of a document: look at the chapter headings and section headings in the present document. It is, however, usual to use a colon after a word, phrase or sentence in the middle of a text which introduces some following material which is set off in the middle of the page. There are three consecutive examples of this just above, in the second, third and fourth paragraphs of this section.

The colon has a few minor uses. First, when you cite the name of a book which has both a title and a subtitle, you should separate the two with a colon:

You should do this even though no colon may appear on the cover or the title page of the book itself.

Second, the colon is used in citing passages from the Bible:

Observe that, exceptionally, the colon is not followed by a white space in Biblical references.

Third, the colon may be used in writing ratios:

In formal writing, however, it is usually preferable to write out ratios in words:

Fourth, in American usage, a colon is used to separate the hours from the minutes in giving a time of day: 2:10, 11:30 (A). British Eng lish uses a full stop for this purpose: 2.10, 11.30.

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