@ Bunko,
Aslam o Alaikum,
Well brother semi-colon is normally used in a sentence as follow:
Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter, unless that letter is the first letter of a proper noun. They have no spaces before them, but one or two spaces after. Applications of the semicolon in English include:
- Between closely-related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.):
- "I went to the swimming pool; I was told it was closed for routine maintenance."
- "A man chooses; a slave obeys."
- Between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb: (A conjunctive adverb connects two clauses and shows cause and effect, sequence, contrast, comparison, or other relationships.)
- "I like to eat cows; however, I don't like to be eaten by them."
- Between items in a series or listing containing internal punctuation, especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as serial commas:
- "She saw three men: Donald, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man."
- "Several fast food restaurants can be found in each of London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; and Madrid, Spain."
- "Examples of familiar sequences are: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; and first, second, and third."
Since it is a very complex field (I mean Punctuation) so unless you are not cocksure about any such mark's usage, don't use it especially in Grammar paper because in other papers the examiner may not point out your mistake but in grammar paper he won't spare you!!!
Regarding using idiom in a precis, I will say that if it matches with the flow of your expression than there is no harm otherwise don't overburden your precis with idioms or idiomatic pharases; however, you can use expressive verbs to convey the meaning!!!
Hope i 've made myself clear!!!