I am writing a letter of recommendation and don’t want to make a mistake. Is the following sentence correct? I’m not sure about the semicolon. Is there a better way to write it?
Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful; all qualities that I am sure you will appreciate.
Thanks!
A semi-colon is incorrect because the part after the semi-colon is not an independent clause. That is, it does not stand on its own as a complete sentence. To make the minimum changes necessary I would use a dash (rendered here as two hyphens):
Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful–all qualities that I am sure you will appreciate.
However, I would probably just prune it down. This is just my opinion:
He is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful.
I do not see how “Of course” adds anything to the sentence, and only the reader knows what qualities they appreciate.
The semicolon is wrong. A comma would do, or you could have “Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful, which are all qualities that I am sure you will appreciate.”
A semicolon should only be used if it can be replaced with “and” or with a period (followed by the start of a new sentence) without significantly changing the meaning, or creating a sentence fragment.
A dash, as suggested by CookingWithGas, is not quite as unambiguously wrong as the semicolon, but I certainly do not think it is appropriate here, just a comma is plenty.
+1
A semi-colon is just a cheap license to write run-on sentences. It’s always an awkward construct, and only occasionally really warranted by the context (and even then, other better wordings can be found).
The sentence in the OP might work better with a full colon:Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful: all qualities that I am sure you will appreciate.
But CookingWithGas has the best suggestion: Just write He is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful.and leave it at that.
Concur. And, the “I’m sure you will agree” clause is correct–“punctuality, conscientiousness, and resourcefulnes” are a given good thing in a recommendation letter. Moreover, it gives both a sense of reinforcement to the recipient (the wise agree-er) and gives further reinforcement by giving him the chance of bonding with another wise man who agrees with him. The recipient has been offered–given the honor–to be seconded.
The “I’m sure” is not so much presumptuous as it is establishing credentials.
Referral letters suck. My wife made me do one for her friend’s kid to get into first grade at a private school. It was less fun than it sounds.
Yeah, I don’t know why some people are so keen to strip this down so much. Nobody is on a wordage limit here, and a recommendation letter does not have to read like Ernest Hemingway or a scientific abstract. A formal but conversational tone is appropriate. There is no need to be terse. You are (presumably) trying to convey a good feeling about the candidate.
I really do not see anything wrong with the original sentence that changing the semicolon to a comma wont fix. (A colon is certainly better than a semicolon or a dash, but it is still serious punctuational overkill.)
I don’t like it when people say “I’m sure”… it almost always means they aren’t sure, they’re just trying to convince themselves that they are.
I would suggest revising it as follows:
Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful – qualities that you would appreciate.
I think a dash works better than a comma.
Frankly, I’ve never seen what most of William James’ work adds to the Universe; his novels should be trimmed to comply with the classic grammatical rule, handed down from On High by White and His Prophet Strunk, “Omit!”
(Understand, of course, that by ‘trimmed’ I mean completely and utterly.)
I take it you mean Henry. 
I think that here it gently suggests that the writer is taking the recipient into his confidence, rather than hectoring him and telling him what he ought to think.
And yes, your version requires a dash or, better, a colon, rather than a comma, but, like CookingWithGas’ suggestion, it is a different sentence from the original, with a different emotional feel and rhetorical force.
True, but I do think the “of course” weakens the impressions of those qualities. Adding “of course” makes it sound like, yeah, these are just checklist qualities every single one of your candidates have, rather than, hey, check it out, this guy is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful (these are important qualities not every candidate may have.)
At least that’s how it reads to me. “Of course” significantly weakens the impact of those characteristics, in my opinion.
OK. I am not going to argue with that.
I don’t see the “of course” as weakening anything. It’s a conversational idiom, here used to introduce something that should be taken for granted but couldn’t hurt to mention anyway – “well of course he’s [wonderful], otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this!”
For the OP, replace the semicolon with a comma (a dash or colon is just wrong there) and it’s fine.
"Of course, he is punctual, conscientious, and resourceful, all qualities that I am sure you will appreciate." Excellent.
Exactly. That’s why to me it feels weaker than without. That said, it really doesn’t matter. Those two words are not going to make or break a letter of recommendation.
Bah. At this rate, I’m going to need William!
Thank you all for your input. I am now much clearer on semicolons. I never really understood their use. I do tend to use dashes a lot in my writing. I suppose I tend to write casually.
The “of course” was used because I went into some detail about specific qualities the candidate had. After a short paragraph describing those specialized qualities, I wanted to wrap it with the basics…punctual, etc.
Thanks again
Exactly. A letter of recommendation is not a conversation. It doesn’t weaken it, but it adds nothing but extra words. In conversation people do this to buy time to think.
A comma is fine here too, but there’s nothing wrong about a dash, which according to the Chicago Manual of Style “sets off an amplifying or explanatory element.”
The original version is wrong because the semi-colon must have subject/verb on one side and subject/verb on the other. The part after the semi-colon is a fragment.
I agree with the others who said to leave out “of course” and stuff like that. Also, I don’t like “I’m sure YOU” – telling the reader how you think he will feel is presumptuous. It would be better to say something like “His colleagues and supervisors at Universal Widget appreciated these qualities” or something along those lines. IOW say more about the person; don’t speculate about how the reader will feel. (That is a correct use of the semi-colon.)