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Please read the following sentence:

My interest in learning and thirst to seek out information whenever I can: my curiosity, is what I would consider my greatest talent.

In this situation, is the use of a colon followed by a comma acceptable? I've always used colons to indicate that the next set of words amplify (describe, delimit, explain) those which came before the colon, and then ending this amplification with a period. However, I have never found myself then continuing the sentence, so I am wondering would hyphens work better in this context, like this:

My interest in learning and thirst to seek out information whenever I can- my curiosity- is what I would consider my greatest talent.

Or perhaps just a set of commas as "my curiosity" in this sentence is an appositive, like so:

My interest in learning and thirst to seek out information whenever I can, my curiosity, is what I would consider my greatest talent.

What do you think?

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  • They each have a different feeling. The colon is an announcement. The commas are too weak (for this sentence).... I abuse m-dash separators, so I cannot criticize.
    – wetcircuit
    Nov 29, 2021 at 3:22
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    Asking what people think is an invitation to have the question closed as opinion-based.
    – Chenmunka
    Nov 29, 2021 at 9:50
  • And editing out that last sentence magically makes the question not opinion-based…. Writing Exchange, where there are more vtc than users.
    – wetcircuit
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:24
  • Are you wanting to emphasise "my curiosity" or "my greatest talent"? Generally what's emphasised goes at start or sometimes end of a sentence, not in the middle.
    – Stuart F
    Dec 1, 2021 at 19:59

2 Answers 2

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Do not use a comma before "is" in this sentence: My curiosity is what I would consider my biggest talent.

A more concise way of saying the same thing:

Curiosity is my biggest talent.

Also, you start with a sentence fragment, ending with a colon, and then have a complete sentence. A colon is an abrupt stop before a list or definition. That's not what you have written.

Consider this a more streamlined and connected way of expressing your ideas:

I have a thirst for knowledge and I enjoy seeking new information whenever I can. I consider curiosity to be my greatest talent.

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  • Thank you for answering. After reading the comments I got on the question I see that the toxicity and hopeless obsession with rules which plagues StackOverflow has made its way to this stackexchange website as well. Oh well.
    – Mave
    Nov 30, 2021 at 4:51
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You are misusing a colon; it is a stop before a list.

I'd go with the commas version. An alternative would be to put "My curiosity," first.

My curiosity, my interest in learning and thirst to seek out information whenever I can, is what I would consider my greatest talent.

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