Correct the following sentences by adding the correct punctuation marks (semicolon, colon, dash) as needed. DO NOT revise the sentence in any way!

Question

1. I I I don't know what you mean!
2. Hardcovers have three advantages durability, attractiveness, and value.
3. What we wanted was what every child wanted to play all day, every day.
4. In the article, Johnson describes the main diseases affecting society today here, he explains how diseases have moved from infectious to chronic and degenerative.

Answer 1

1. I don't know what you mean.
2. Hardcovers have three advantages: durability, attractiveness, and value.
3. What we wanted was what every child wanted, to play all day every day.
4. In the article Johnson describes the main diseases affecting society today; here he explains how diseases have moved from infectious to chronic and degenerative.

Answer 2

The first sentence is correct. 2. Hardcovers have three advantages: durability, attractiveness, and value. (the colon here is used before a list) 3. What we wanted was what every child wanted—to play all day, every day. (the em dash is used when you tack on additions to complete sentences like this; you create the em dash by typing two dashes between the two words, without including any spaces) 4. In the article, Johnson describes the main diseases affecting society today; here, he explains how diseases have moved from infectious to chronic and degenerative. (the semicolon separates two complete sentences)

Just a note... The em dash, which I've used above, is not to be confused with the en dash. The en dash is shorter, and is used between things like numbers or dates. Here is a nice explanation: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDashesEmDashes/faq0002.html