Ah, the delicateness of a semicolon, showing strength yet flexibility. Here are some great sites to help you decide:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_commacomp.html
http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000094.htm
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/semicolons.asp

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I am having a semicolon dilemma, if I may call it that.

A good friend of mine who has many years of experience in the industry is a semicolon fanatic. I have never seen so many semicolons in a transcript in my life.

I am really digging those links about semicolons, and I feel like sending them to her, so that she can correct the error of her ways.

This is a sample of her semicolon placements:

Oh; okay. Yes; we will. No; not today.

I am kind of an old-school kind of gal, and I was trained to use the semicolon for questions like this:

You went to the store; is that correct?

Maybe the reader of the transcript would never notice the semicolon placement, but I sure do. Every time this semicolon lady and I share a job, I have to search for the semicolons and take 99 percent of the out.

I like this section of the forum and look forward to learning from others. One thing for sure, you can never know it all in this racket!
Oh; okay. Yes; we will. No; not today = ridiculous, incorrect, and a little ignorant

You went to the store; is that correct? = fine. I use a period but semicolon is fine.
I'm with you. I wish I could approach this lady about her semicolon usage, but I don't want to insult her. She's older than me, been doing this longer than me, and I just don't feel comfortable telling her she's wrong -- at least, I should say, in my opinion she's wrong.

One common boo-boo I see with semicolon placement and newbies is the placement of the quotation mark outside of the semicolon. The quotation mark ALWAYS goes inside the semicolon.

These are things that nobody taught me in school. I learned them the hard way with somebody correcting my transcript and pointing out the errors.
If I recall from the store manager testimony, he picks up the phone; he calls in a report, gives them whatever information he has, and then he gets some sort of document sent to him.

Would you consider that a list? Should it be like this:
If I recall from the store manager testimony, he picks up the phone; he calls in a report, gives them whatever information he has,[;] and then he gets some sort of document sent to him.
Wow, Marla, I just saw this post of yours. I came to this topic because I was trying to get a refresher course on semicolons. I just do not understand them fully and want to learn more.

Both of your examples in italics look good to my eye.

When I read magazines, newspapers, and books, I don't see that many semicolons, like I do in transcripts. I often wonder why that is.

I understand the semicolon usage in lists. I also use the semicolons for incomplete sentences.

Example: She went to the store to buy apples; health eating, if you will.
Example: She went to the store to buy apples; that is, when instructed to go.

I sometimes see semicolons used before the word "but," and I do not understand this usage well and want to learn. Does anybody have a rule of thumb for this, so that I can understand it better? TIA!
I try to think of what my English teacher had taught me in school whenever I edit. If there is no reason to put a comma, semicolon, etc. in the sentence, don't put it in. Some people not only semicolon to death but they also comma to death.

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