- Bullet points – Style.ONS
- Using Bullet Points Effectively
- About | Howe Center for Writing Excellence | Miami University
- About | Howe Writing Center - Miami University
- A Lawyer's Guide to Writing » Blog Archive Marie Buckley: legal writing coach/ use of bullets in legal writing
I bookmarked three of the five pages above in January 2023, whilst suggesting edits to submissions for the first FreeBSD status report of the year. The final report included a mixture of styles; uncertainty remained.
Whilst reviewing a pull request for the second report:
– so, I created this page to quote from, and expand upon, the three pages from January. It's thought-provoking; not intended to reflect any agreement or consensus.
The diversity of style below is intentional. Two opening thoughts:
- I sometimes dislike Americanisation – mostly, unnecessary use of uppercase
- part of at least one linked page is slightly self-contradictory.
Office for National Statistics, UK
… We use bullet points in two different ways.
As a list within the text
Use bullet points to make text easier to read. Make sure that:
- you always use a lead-in line
- there is always a space between the lead-in line and the bullet points
- the bullets make sense running on from the lead-in line
- each bullet is short (no more than one sentence)
- you use lower case at the start of the bullet point, unless it starts with a proper noun
- you do not use full stops within bullet points – where possible start another bullet point or use commas, dashes or semicolons to expand
- you do not put “or”, “and” after the bullet points
- there is no punctuation at the end of bullet points
- if you add links they appear within the text and not as the whole bullet point
- there is no full stop after the last bullet point
Your list should have at least three bullet points. If you have fewer, rewrite your content as individual sentences or paragraphs.
For bullet points following a heading
There is no lead-in line and the bullet points follow on directly from a heading or subheading. Each bullet point:
- starts with a capital letter
- finishes with a full stop
- is short (no more than one sentence)
EXAMPLE
…
To my UK eye, everything above is good except:
- the absence of full stops from final items
– because in both cases, there's a colon at the tail of the sentence that precedes the first item, and this sentence has an uppercase beginning.
Rephrased, and reformatted, to preserve emphasis whilst not having single-item list:
To my UK eye, everything above is good except the absence of full stops from final items – because in both cases, there's a colon at the tail of the sentence that precedes the first item, and this sentence has an uppercase beginning.
https://www.freebsd.org/status/report-2023-01-2023-03/#_freebsd_official_mirrors_overview was partly the result of pull requests 155 and 156:
- the list ends with a full stop.
Handout (undated, first captured in 2017). Howe Writing Initiative, Farmer School of Business, Miami University
… The purposes of bullet points include the following:
- Drawing attention to important information,
- Scanning a document for important information,
- Communicating efficiently with your audience.
…
- commas at the tails of the first and second list items.
From its Mission:
… the HCWE strives to:
- Provide the most innovative, research-based writing instruction in the country
- Measurably impact writing-related research, practice, and policy at Miami, in Ohio, in the region, and in the nation.
- fewer than three items
- no comma at the tail of the first.
…
What we believe about writing
- All writers have more to learn.
- Learning to write effectively requires different kinds of practice, time, and effort.
- Revision is central to developing writing.
- Reflection is critical for writer’s development.
- consistent with the example given by the Office for National Statistics.
A Lawyer's Guide to Writing » Blog Archive Marie Buckley: legal writing coach/ use of bullets in legal writing
June 2011. https://nitter.net/MariePBuckley | https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-buckley-707679119/ – New York, New York, United States
…
How to Punctuate and Style Bullets?
Bullets are a new style, so not everyone agrees on how to style them. Here is what I recommend:
- Put a colon at the end of the phrase of sentence that introduces the bullet.
- Capitalize the first word in the bullet.
- If the bullet is a word or a phrase, don’t put any punctuation at the end (except the last bullet will take a period).
- If the bullet is a sentence, put a period at the end.
- Do not put “and” at the end of the penultimate bullet.
- Always put a period at the end of the last bullet.
…
Overkill?
Keep bullets simple and clean. Bullets become visually complicated if they are spread over more than two facing pages. Similarly, avoid bullets within bullets. The absence of any hierarchy will make the bullet points hopelessly confusing.
…
Consider the list of providers under the recent FreeBSD Official Mirrors Overview. Think of some, loosely, as Internet service providers; then consider the array at https://www.thinkbroadband.com/isps. Names with lowercase beginnings include:
- air
- airband
- aquiss.
If we follow the (American) advice to capitalise the first word, then the list becomes misrepresentative:
- Air
- Airband
- Aquiss.
FreeBSD status reports are, essentially co-authored, with original contributions from numerous people who are not based in the United States. With this international authorship, there should be freedom from a rule of capitalisation; it's a rule that's guaranteed to break, eventually.
As Marie Buckley wrote, not everyone agrees …