Bulleted lists
Image: Karen (cc)
A bulleted list is an asset when you are supporting your argument. It’s a liability when your discussion is so underdeveloped that you rely on dot points to make your case for you. Only use them once you have already made your central point in the text and simply wish to provide some supporting evidence, examples or instructions.
Conventions that apply to bulleted lists change with the weather … and from one industry to the next.
They’re very particular about the use of the semicolon in the law; in fact, they’re very particular about a lot of things, given that the placement of punctuation can have some very expensive consequences. In the less consequential professions, however, things can be a little more freewheeling.
Some people regard lists as a Licence to Capitalise and go berserk. But keeping in mind that the items in a bulleted list are more often than not functioning as an extension of a sentence, lower case is usually best.
Another common error is to ignore ‘parallel structure’. What’s that? Well, how often have you seen a list like this:
You can collect the following items from the playgroup:
beach balls
soft toys
picture books
and don’t forget first aid equipment.
That last point should either have a sentence all its own or it should lose the first 3 words so it matches the rest of the points on the list.
The convention now is to eliminate all punctuation at the end of a line until a full stop at the end of the last point. It is thought that all those commas or semicolons look messy and don’t add much in the way of meaning since it’s obvious a break is intended as a new line is starting. I agree.
If the bullet points are complete sentences in their own right, then start each point with a capital letter and finish with a full stop.
So, golden rules for bulleted lists are:
parallel structure
no punctuation at the end of a line
full stops only for full sentences.
I would add a fourth: brevity.
