Premise

Most people are familiar with seeing colons introduce lists or bulleted information. We use them ourselves here at the Writing Spot. They serve to prompt your reader to expect these types of organizational conventions. But there are plenty of other uses for colons, both technical and thematic.

Examples

Perhaps the most common use of colons are how you see them used to introduce bulleted lists as mentioned. For example:

• This example!
• And this example.

But colons can also be used to to introduce answers or elaborations based upon prompted ideas for further specific details. Consider the following examples—the first without a colon and the second with one:

• “There was one thing he cared about in the world more than anything else. It was his wife.”
• “There was one thing he cared about in the world more than anything else: his wife.”

Notice the difference in pacing between these two examples. Especially if you read the first one out loud, it feels almost clunky. The second one shortens the distance between a prompted idea and its answer, in this case: what does he care about in the world more than anything else? The answer: his wife.

Just look at a few more examples, and consider which one elicits a more dramatic effect in highlighting how strong the statement feels:

• The murderer had just one question left to consider: what to do with the victims’ heads?
• She hit him right where she knew it would hurt the most: his heart.
• The summer monsoon brought what everyone knew was coming: utter destruction.

Alternative Usage

Of course, there are plenty of other ways that you might see colons implemented out in the real world. Especially with social media usage, these may appear in various ways for stylistic reasons. We see them as parts of titles and in headings and subheadings too.

Further Considerations

• Many people often have trouble deciding when to use a colon vs. an em dash. Typically, the latter involves longer prompts of additional texts that aren’t direct answers to ideas like with colons. We have a whole section about how and why to use em dashes which you can check out here.
• Keep an eye out for how you’re seeing these used. If, for example, you see a technical document using colons to introduce sections, information within a certain structure, etc., then it might be appropriate to consider implementing such usage for your own documentation of this sort.