IXL | Use semicolons and commas to separate items in a series

Consider the commas in bold, which are used to separate the items in a list. If they are not used correctly, remove them or replace them with different punctuation marks.

If Trisha had to name her favorite basketball players, she'd pick Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 38,387 points during his career, Michael Jordan, who won five MVP awards, and Shaquille O'Neal, who was known for his masterful dunk.

ref_doc_title.

Learn with an example

question

Consider the commas in bold, which are used to separate the items in a list. If they are not used correctly, remove them or replace them with different punctuation marks.

American swimmer Gertrude Ederle won two Olympic medals, broke several world records, and became the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel.

key idea

Both semicolons and commas may be used to separate three or more items in a series.

In most cases, use commas to separate items in a series. Put a comma after each item in the list, except for the last one.

Our speakers will be Kevin O'Malley, Rachel Stein, and Linda Wu.

Use semicolons to separate items in a series when using commas would be unclear, such as when one or more items in the series already contain commas.

Our speakers will be Kevin O'Malley, an English professor; Rachel Stein, a print journalist; and Linda Wu, a blogger.

solution

Use commas. No items in the series have commas within them.

$Confetti$

Excellent!

Now entering the Challenge Zone—are you ready?

Questions
answeredQuestions

Time
elapsedTime

hr	min	sec
00	00	06

SmartScore
out of 100
IXL's SmartScore is a dynamic measure of progress towards mastery, rather than a percentage grade. It tracks your skill level as you tackle progressively more difficult questions. Consistently answer questions correctly to reach excellence (90), or conquer the Challenge Zone to achieve mastery (100)! Learn more

Teacher tools

Work it out

Not feeling ready yet? This can help:

MM.2Use semicolons, colons, and commas with lists

Excellent! You got that right!

Jumping to level 1 of 1

Excellent!