Activity

@annamarieoriginal So here’s what I was taught about semicolons: think of them as “super commas.”

They’re used to blend independent sentences when they seem too choppy separately but not distinct enough with a comma and conjunction.

They’re also used to delineate a list of lists, which is what your sentence is. So, similar to what @mariposa said, I would swap out the dashes for commas and keep the semicolons, like this:

Natalie met all of my cousins: Fredrick, an intelligent, laid-back college student; Ellen, a quiet but likable bookworm; and Chris, an active, blond-headed 15-year year old who was tossing a football in the yard.

I also agree that it might be more effective to use actions to describe the cousins, like you do with Chris. 🙂