RE: Periods and bullets

["Marci Bethel, RMB Editorial Services" <mhbethel -at- rmbeditorial -dot- com>]

John wrote:
My position is that a bullet list of gragments gets no
period:

The crate had
  - oranges
  - apples
  - lemons

and her position is that the last bullet gets a period.

The crate had
  - oranges
  - apples
  - lemons.

Any validity to this?
------------------------

No. You're right; you can cite CMoS 15, 6.127 if you need an
authority. CMoS 6.127 also advises that the introductory
phrase should be a complete sentence that ends in a colon
(for example, "The crate had the following contents:"). 

Your co-worker might be thinking of a situation in which the
introductory phrase and the fragments are treated and
punctuated as a sentence, but that case would require
additional punctuation (CMoS 15, 6.129).

Also, here is a relevant Q&A from CMoS online
(www.chicagomanualofstyle.org): 

Q. What are the proper guidelines for punctuating the
phrases/clauses in a bulleted list? 

A. Many people have been asking us about how to punctuate
vertical lists?numbered, unnumbered, and bulleted. Do you
capitalize the first letter of each new item? What about
terminal punctuation? Periods? Semicolons? Commas? The
following list will, I hope, answer these questions: 

Vertical lists are best introduced by a grammatically
complete sentence (i.e., a sentence that is still a sentence
all by itself, without the help of the list), like the one
above, followed by a colon. 

No periods are required at the end of entries unless at
least one entry is a complete sentence, in which case a
period is necessary at the end of each entry. 

Items in a list should be syntactically similar.

If items are numbered, as they are in this example, a period
follows each number, and each entry begins with a capital
letter?whether or not the entry forms a complete sentence. 

Bulleted lists are considered appropriate mainly for
instructional or promotional material and are treated the
same as numbered lists in terms of capitalization and
punctuation. 

A group of unnumbered items each of which consists of an
incomplete sentence should begin lowercase and requires no
terminal punctuation. 

If a list completes the sentence that introduces it, items
begin with lowercase letters, commas or semicolons are used
to separate each item, and the last item ends with a period;
such lists are often better run into the text rather than
presented vertically. 

That?s Chicago style, in any case. I think this style
demonstrates a marriage between the principles of
consistency and grammatical integrity?and in this marriage
there are some compromises. If you are dissatisfied with a
list after applying these principles, consider rewriting the
list or scrapping the list format altogether. Vertical lists
are usually introduced to highlight and clarify a principle;
any awkwardness can destroy their raison d?être. 

HTH,
Marci


Marci Bethel, Freelance Technical Editor 
RMB Editorial Services, www.rmbeditorial.com 
www.linkedin.com/in/marcibethel
mhbethel -at- rmbeditorial -dot- com 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing 
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor,  Microsoft Word or 
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. 
http://www.doctohelp.com

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat