RE: punctuation in bullet text

["Rene Stephenson" <rinnie1 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Peter has asked about punctuating bulleted lists.

Hi Peter,

Well, you've got parallelism, which is more than I see in many bulleted
lists. ;-) In American English, it is acceptable to allow the bullet to
function as quasi-punctuation. In this case, you would capitalize each
phrase but omit any ending punctuation, especially since the list is
sentence fragments. Your example would appear as, "...It is used to:

- Identify and understand the context and reviewing the text in its entirety
- Make sure that the words, sentences, and punctuation of the text express
effectively and precisely what the dictator desires
- Ensure that the references to sources are accurate and that citations in
the text match the list of references"

However, it is also acceptable (and probably clearer, due to specifying
"and" or "or") to punctuate the bulleted as one would read it in paragraph
form:

- Identify and understand the context and reviewing the text in its
entirety,
- Make sure that the words, sentences, and punctuation of the text express
effectively and precisely what the dictator desires, and
- Ensure that the references to sources are accurate and that citations in
the text match the list of references.

Of course, much is left to the preference of the editor, if there is such a
player on your team. ;-)  Some editors would take issue with the fact that
the structure of the intro phrase + the list creates split infinitives, but
I'm less rigid than that. ;-)

If there isn't an editor, just be consistent with the way you treat all the
bulleted lists in your documents. Maintain parallelism and initial caps, and
either always punctuate minimally, or always punctuate as it would appear in
a paragraph. If you're making the decision yourself, you might consider that
the less punctuated route comes off as a bit less formal, if not less
polished, but it would be the better way to go if the overall tone of the
document is informal, and the audience isn't particularly uptight. :-)

I apologize if my comments spark a conflagration...

HTH
Rene



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