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Joe made the sugar cookies; Susan decorated them
No, a semicolon is not necessary in a compound sentence if a coordinating conjunction is not used. You can use a comma to separate the independent clauses in a compound sentence instead.
You can not punctuate a sentence with a semicolon.
A semicolon can be used to show a compound sentence. It joins two closely related independent clauses.
A semicolon (;)
A conjunction.
Comma=After conjustion in a compound sentence Semicolon=Replaces a conjustion and a comma Comma Example I love pizza, and I love chesse. Colon Examples I love pizza; I love Chesse.
A semicolon is used to join two independent clauses together. An example of two independent clauses joined together via semicolon is: "Baum's book is a political allegory; few people today would recognize the political events in this story."
A compound sentence is formed by joining two or more independent clauses with a semicolon, a comma, and an independent marker.
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The meaning of a semicolon is to separate TWO complete thoughts..... " . . . a punctuation mark used to separate two parts of a compound sentence when they are not connected by a conjunction."
The semicolon is used, often with a conjunctive adverb, or between independent clauses. A semicolon is also used between words in a series when parts of the series contain commas.