The full stop means, “Stop here.”
The full stop means, “Stop here.”
The comma means, “Pause for a second.” It can also mean, “Draw a little breath.”
The semi-colon means, “Hmm….here’s something else, closely related.”
The colon means, “…and here it is.”
The exclamation point means, “Good Lord, that’s shocking!”
The dash means, “But wait! That’s not all!” It can also mean, “a-HA!”
Because the dash is the strongest punctuation mark, you should use it as sparingly as possible. Once a page is the absolute maximum.
Try to have only one semi-colon per paragraph, if that. The same is true of the colon, although if you’re using it to introduce evidence, use your own judgement as to how often is appropriate.
There is nothing wrong with a good full stop. Just because you know how a semi-colon works, that doesn’t mean you have to use it.