Question

Read the sentences. Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth. It holds the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded: –128.6° F. Which choice shows the punctuation and/or conjunction needed to correctly combine the sentences?

Earth and it


Earth; it


Earth it


Earth, it

Answer 1

Correct answer is Earth; it

Answer 2

Answer: Earth; it

The correct punctuation to use in this sentence is the semicolon. The semicolon is used when we want to separate major sentence elements. It can also be used (as in this example) to join two closely related independent clauses without the use of a conjunction. Finally, a semicolon can be used to separate items in a list, particularly when the elements contain commas.