Semi-Colons in a List, Where Some of The Listed Items Contain Commas.

[jwarne1]

Hello Guys,

I'm a native English speaker, and in fact write semi-regularly with my job (some would say rather well). But there is one question I have reguarding using semi-colons in lists when the individual items in the list contain commas.

The sentence I am writing (for my narrative resume) is this:

"In this capacity I was responsible for: writing a generic grant proposal for the organization, which brought in more than $50,000 for [organization name removed]; securing construction materials for our volunteer construction teams, managed through a partnership with [removed]; solicited construction volunteers, liaised with the media on the behalf of [removed[, created a..."

My question is, when writing a list (normally separated by commas) where one of the list items contains a comma ("securing construction materials for our volunteer construction teams, managed through a partnership with [removed];) do you then separate the other items in the list with a semi-colon, regardless of whether or not there are commas in the items?

In the example above, there are two items in the list that contain commas. The others do not but are separated by commas. If I don't use semi-colons on all of them, it looks looks as though the remaining items are part of a single complex item in the list, as well.

Any advice?

This is one thing I cannot recall from English 101 in college...

Thanks!

[Barb_D]

Yes, once you need to use a semi-colon because one item in the list has an internal comma, you continue to use the semi-colon to separate all of the items in the list.

You may find that if you did have only one item that needed the comma (not true in your example), you might prefer to re-order the elements, separating them with commas and then putting the complex one after an "as well as."

So: a, which included b; c, which involved d; e, although not f; g; h; and i.
or
a, b, c, and d, as well as e, which involved f.

Edit: Oh, and welcome to Using English!