The use of the colon

I found this helpful with the use of a colon.

Right or Wrong?


The ingredients for the chocolate cake: flour, cocoa, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract.


Wrong! The above sentence includes a list of cake ingredients introduced by a colon. A colon is indeed expected to introduce a list but the text preceding it must constitute an independent clause making up a sentence that can stand alone. As the preceding text is merely a noun phrase and not an independent clause answering to the double requirement of both subject and predicate, placing the colon here is wrong. A correct wording would therefore be:



We need several ingredients for the chocolate cake: flour, cocoa, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract.