Question

USING SEMICOLONS AND COLONS CORRECTLY Correct the punctuation in the following sentences by re-writing the sentence, adding semicolons and colons where they are needed and by changing other punctuation and capitalization as needed.
The Fourth of July parade included the following floats, which all had a patriotic theme, marching bands, clowns, jugglers, and other circus performers, and antique cars, trucks, and other vehicles.

Answer 1

The Fourth of July parade included the following; floats, which all had a patriotic theme, marching bands, clowns, jugglers and, other circus performers along with antique cars, trucks and, other vehicles.

Answer 2

Answer:

The Fourth of July parade included the following floats, which all had a patriotic theme: marching bands, clowns, jugglers, and other circus performers; and antique cars, trucks, and other vehicles.

Explanation:

Colons' function is to introduce an item or a series of items when they are preceded by a complete thought (sentence), such as it is used in the sentence "The Fourth of July parade included the following floats, which all had a patriotic theme:" which it's a complete thought.

As for commas, one of their functions is to separate items in a list such as in "marching bands, clowns, jugglers, and other circus performers".

Likewise, semicolons can also be used to separate items in a list when the list items already contain commas. In this case, semicolons are used to  show which items are grouped together, and to outrank the existing commas, such as it is employed in the following list: "marching bands, clowns, jugglers, and other circus performers; and antique cars, trucks, and other vehicles." Here, the semicolon works as a separator of the two lists.