Constant Content

Hello everyone!

I'm quite new here and have a question about bulleted lists. Is it acceptable to continue a sentence into a list as shown below (and of course within the context of an article that explains and discusses the list items)?

A chronic complainer is someone who...
- resists responsibility
- has difficulty accepting the consequences of his choices
- lacks maturity

This isn't my actual list. I just made this up to illustrate what I mean. I like the idea of being able to set off certain points for emphasis (and particularly because I have too many to incorporate in a single sentence), but then where in the heck does the period go? I used to write for a guy who wanted these types of lists within paragraph text, but he didn't care much about punctuation.

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
For that kind of bulleted list, periods aren't necessary. In general, if list items are fragments, they don't get end punctuation. Page 68 of the Yahoo! Style Guide says:

If all of the list items are sentence fragments: Don't use any ending punctuation - even if the items complete a sentence fragment that introduces the list.

It goes on to suggest punctuating all complete sentences within a list. If one item in the list is a complete sentence, then even the fragments get ending punctuation marks (however, for consistency, you might want to restructure the items so they all match).

Lists that require end punctuation:
* Bulleted lists that consist of complete sentences like this one.
* Bulleted lists containing at least one complete sentence.

Lists that do not require end punctuation:
* Bulleted lists with sentence fragments
* Lists like your example

And it's none of my business, but that idea about chronic complainers would make a great article.

Celeste,
many thanks for your thorough reply, which covers even more situations than the one I presented. I'm sure that, sooner or later, I will run into every sort of situation with bullets and lists. Your help is very much appreciated.

Charlotte,
Isn't it amazing how everything around us somehow turns into an article? Actually, my little list was sort of a self-portrait of me as I was last week. Fortunately, I've now recovered...

webscribe -- glad you're feeling better

Thanks, Charlotte! I guess we can get going on those articles about chronic complainers now .