Bullet or dot point lists are a great technique to break up text.
They will create more white space and make your writing easier to read.
Dot points will also make it much easier to scan you writing which is particularly useful in web text where readers scan for information rather than reading each word.
Despite this, many writers avoid them as dot point lists can be tricky to punctuate.
So, how do you punctuate a bullet list?
Learning a few simple rules will help you gain confidence to use them in all your best work.
Dot points are also known as bullet points
Always introduce your list
Every list should start with a lead-in sentence. This will introduce the list into the flow of the text.
Your lead-in sentence (or partial sentence) should end in a colon (:).
Full sentence lists
If your list is made up of full sentences, each should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop.
For example:
The committee made two recommendations:
The council should set new guidelines.
New research should be funded.
Both items in the list are complete sentences and so they take a capital at the start and end in a full stop.
Fragment lists
If your list is made up of fragments or parts of a sentence, do not use an intial capital and only use a full stop after the last item.
For example:
The colours of the Australian flag are:
red
white
blue.
Some writers will end each item with a semi-colon but the current trend is to reduce the amount of punctuation used as it can act as a barrier to the reader.
A mix of both
If your list has a mix of full sentences and partial sentence, you will need to rewrite them.
This example is wrong:
The committee made two recommendations:
The council should set new guidelines.
fund new research.
This example is correct:
The committee made two recommendations:
set new guidelines
fund new research.
A word on numbered lists
Try to use bullets rather than numbers or letters in your list as they are take up less space and don’t interrupt the reader’s flow.
Numbers or letters in lists should be used when you need to show priority or where you need to refer to individual items in the list.
Numbers are often used in legal documents, such as contracts or legislation.
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