It begins with a squinting of the eyes. Hm. A semicolon. You approach it with caution. Ok, I can do this. One dot, plus a comma. There. No, wait. That doesn’t look quite right. The questions begin: ...

The semicolon is the comma's first cousin, but it works a little bit harder; it also makes you look smarter. So what are the practical ways to implement this little grammatical workhorse? Read on to ...