Today’s totally free grammar tip is brought to you courtesy of improperly punctuated bulleted lists. I cry a little inside every time I see a motley list that can’t make up its mind about end punctuation. It makes me want to pull out my trusty Sharpie and either dot in some missing periods or slash the strays. My heightened sense of syntax demands it.
To keep me from weeping over sloppy bullets, here are some handy guidelines for your next list.
1. If your bullets are complete sentences, use periods at the end of each item. Period.
In this type of list, each bulleted or numbered item can stand alone as a complete sentence. Normal sentence capitalization and end punctuation rules apply.
Example:
Follow these pro tips for punctuating lists:
- Use periods for complete sentences. ← period
- Omit periods if the items are fragments. ← period
- Be consistent; it’s more important than being right. ← period
2. If your bullets are words or phrases that don’t grammatically complete the introductory stem to form a sentence, nix the periods.
These list items are fragments, often a single word or short phrase. Nothing to see here, folks. No sentence, no period. End of story.
Example:
There are several considerations when deciding how to punctuate lists:
- Your preferred style guide ← no period
- Accepted grammar rules ← no period
- Consistency ← no period
3. If your bullets are fragments, but they grammatically complete the introductory stem, you have a choice!
In this type of list, the bulleted item can’t stand alone on its own as a complete sentence (which suggests no period). But when read together with the introductory stem, it forms a grammatically correct sentence (which suggests using a period). It’s quite the quandary.
Example:
When deciding how to punctuate lists, consider whether the list item:
- Stands alone as a complete sentence ← no period
- Grammatically completes the introductory stem to form a sentence ← no period
- Is consistent in format with the rest of the list ← no period
When deciding how to punctuate lists, consider whether the list item:
- stands alone as a complete sentence. ← period
- grammatically completes the introductory stem to form a sentence. ← period
- is consistent in format with the rest of the list. ← period
So which should it be? Periods or no periods? Even the style guides can’t agree. Consulting popular resources such as the AP Stylebook, the MLA Handbook, and the Chicago Manual of Style yields a mess of contradictory opinions. Some of them even get wild and crazy with commas and semicolons. It’s enough to give anyone a migraine.
The bottom line is that this one is totally up to you. Just pick a style and apply it consistently.
4. If your list contains more than one of the above formats, scratch the list and start over, aiming for a more parallel structure.
If you have some items in your list that are complete sentences (requiring periods) and some that are fragments (no periods), STOP. I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got way bigger problems than punctuation. Read up on parallel structure (coming soon to a blog near you) and rewrite that blight!
Example:
What is the most important consideration when choosing how to punctuate a list?
- Whether or not the list item forms a sentence ← fragment, no period
- Whether or not your style guide says it should be punctuated ← fragment, no period
- Consistency is the most important consideration. ← NOOOOOOOOO!!! Danger Will Robinson! Abort! Abort!
While it is of course true that consistency is the most important consideration (see rule #5), mixing sentences and fragments in the same list is at least as much a mortal sin as mixing periods and no periods. If you have this kind of double whammy in your list, you are dead to me.
5. Consistency trumps everything else.
If you can’t remember the simple tips above, then remember this golden rule: when it comes to list punctuation, consistency is king. As far as I’m concerned, you can punctuate (and capitalize) your list however you want, as long as you’re all in, one way or the other.
Don’t be like this list I found in an online corporate style guide, with its lone missing period. In a style guide! I’m embarrassed for whoever produced this.
Remember folks, take pride in your work, and pay attention to details. Please don’t make me come after your indecisive, wishy-washy list punctuation with my Sharpie. It will not be pretty.
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Dan Hollenberg
This article was very helpful and gives validity to how I have been punctuating lists (self taught, based on what seemed logical and appropriate). I am all in with not using commas, semicolons, and periods for sentence fragments and stem completions but I have vacillated with using periods at the end of complete sentences. I especially like your admonition against mixing sentences and fragments in the same list. It always felt ‘wrong’ to do so but now I have support for that feeling.