ShmoopTube

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Hopefully, you could shmoop this question in your sleep...

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How should the underlined portion of the below sentence be changed, if at all?

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The doctor treated a number of injured patients yesterday: one hurt herself rock climbing,

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another broke his leg skiing, and the third fell down the stairs.

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And here are the potential answers:

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So... what is this question asking?

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Do we know the rules of a colon? And no fair checking with our GI doctor.

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Basically, it wants us to look at the sentence and decide if we're using a colon correctly.

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The first part of the sentence could stand on its own... and the part of the sentence

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after the colon is elaborating on the first part.

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Like... "I went to the store and picked up several items: milk, eggs, bread and diesel fuel."

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We're clarifying or adding details to the statement made in the first half of the sentence,

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so a colon is absolutely acceptable.

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In other words... no need to change it.

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Our answer is D.

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As in, "Don't fall down the stairs."

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