UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS OF PUNCTUATION

Think of punctuation in general as street signs. Commas and periods

control speed; a comma slows the traffic down while a period is a stop sign.
A colon slows traffic more than a semicolon. In Latin, “semi” means “half,”
so “semi-fast” literally means half as fast. In a sentence, the colon slows the
flow of the sentence more than a semicolon.

Semicolon:

In English, a reader will see semicolons much more often than colons
because they have more uses. The following mark is a semicolon;

Usage:
1) Joining two related ideas:

The word “and” with no punctuation joins two related ideas without
slowing the reader down too much. A comma joins two ideas but
gives a little speed bump. The semicolon joins ideas and slows the
reader even more. A period is a full stop, and a piece with too many
will be very jarring to read. To help the flow of the writing but still
leave much of the “punch” of two complete sentences, try using a
semicolon to join two closely-related ideas.

 “Bob was hungry; the smell of the neighbors’ barbecue was driving
him insane.”
 “It was raining; the dog smelled like dirty laundry.”

2) Lists with commas:

Things can get crazy with lists and commas hanging out all over the
place. Semicolons can be used to make it all much easier to read.
  “I have lived in Little Rock, Arkansas; Chicago, Illinois; Port
Charlotte, Florida; and San Antonio, Texas.”
Colon
A colon is used to call attention to whatever is coming after it, generally a
list or an explanation of some sort. When using a colon, the phrase before it
must always be a complete sentence and will tell the reader exactly what is
followed by the mark.

 “I have three favorite types of cheese: smoked Gouda, Irish and

cottage.”

 “One type of dog is the friendliest: a wet one.”

 “The look in his eye said it all: he was going to take my

cheeseburger.”