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Increase your vertical
Few documents come out of academia that don’t include a couple of paragraphs that are listings — a list of equipment, a list of collaborating agencies, a course listing, etc. If you see that you’ve got a long listing (five or more entries) that’s horizontal, with entries separated by commas or semicolons, there are a lot of good reasons to convert it to a vertical list, with each entry on one line and introduced with a bullet or asterisk. Readers tend to skim listings instead of reading each entry closely, and a vertical listing makes it unmistakably clear that it’s text that can be skimmed. Vertical lists also work well on Web pages — an important consideration for almost every document these days.
Here are a few guidelines for vertical lists:
Use a colon — not a dash — to introduce the list.
Number vertical lists when the entries are part of a sequence, but when no sequence of actions is involved use bullets.
Sequential:
All students planning on attending the Career Expo should:
1. Pre-register two weeks in advance.
2. Update their resumes and make 25 copies the week before the Expo.
3. Dress in business attire on Expo day.
Non-sequential:
Students attending the Career Expo should bring along:
• At least 25 copies of their resume
• A print-out of their registration form
• Their university ID card
When bulleted items are sentences, capitalize the first letter of each and use appropriate end punctuation. When they consist of single words or phrases, lowercase is best.
In a bulleted list, the bullet takes the place of punctuation (such as commas or semicolons) between items in a list. Don't put periods or semicolons at the ends of bulleted entries that are not sentences.
When bulleted items are sentences, capitalize only the first letter of each word. And even when the entries on a bullet listing are short phrases instead of sentences, it’s best to capitalize only the first word.
Keep bulleted listings consistent. If some of the entries are sentences, make all of them sentences. If most entries begin with verbs, begin all entries with verbs. Bulleted entries should also be about the same length, and are given a similar format. It does not matter which grammatical construction you use in listing as long as you are consistent. Action verbs are a good way to begin items in a list. The following example shows bulleted items that begin with an action verb and are about the same length
Indent your bulleted list from text that comes before and after. Consider the density of the surrounding copy and whether your list might get lost, even with the bullets.
If you’ve got a sequential list and enumerate it, use numbers, not letters.
There’s no need to put numbers in full parenthesis, or to put a close-parenthesis after the period following the numeral.
Don’t forget that Microsoft Word and many other types of software allow you to create either numbered or bulleted lists automatically as you enter text, or to insert numbers or bullets into a list that has already been keyed in automatically.
Posted July 11, 2007 03:32 PM