Bullet Train (Of Thought)

Look up “bullet” in your trusty 2007 AP Style and all the entry says is: See weapons. Not much artillery there if you’re wondering how to format a bulleted list. Next up, the Chicago Manual of Style, which does address the issue but in such mind-numbing detail that only the most hardened Ph.D. student – you know, the kind of high-strung, anal retentive type doing his dissertation on Milton – will have the discipline to read through it (for all you hardened Ph.D. students, it’s in sections 6.124 through 6.130 in the 956-page 2003 15th edition). Even so, the rules are hardly hard and fast. So in the interest of my usual let’s-just-get-on-with-it attitude toward these things, commonly accepted - but by no means absolute - style for bulleted lists is as follows: list the first item, beginning with a lowercase letter and ending with a semicolon; list the following items the same way, ending each with a semicolon; list the second to last item the same way, but end it with a semicolon followed by "and” and a comma; and, list your last item, again beginning with a lowercase letter, but end it with a period. A few other thoughts: If you’re not comfortable with all the punctuation, skip it altogether. The only time you’d definitely want to use punctuation is if each item in your list is a complete sentence – as it is in this particular list; in that case, start each item in your list with a capital letter and end each with a period. Avoid creating lists that are a mixture of phrases and complete sentences so you don't have to deal with the whole punctuation thing. Why do that to yourself? I’m not really a stickler on how bulleted lists should be styled as much as I am a stickler for styling them consistently within the same document. However you choose to style bulleted lists you’ll be able to find support online somewhere for your choices. Should anyone ever challenge you, you can say, hey, but I found it: here here here

Comments

[Chris]

All very nice, but to be quite frank I only see the use of bulleted lists in recipes, technical action plans and presentations.

When I'm reading a text or publication I always see it as a kind of verbal poverty if the author has to resort to bulleted lists.

Apart from that I studied some communication science as a part of another education once, and the professor instilled the thought in me that the rules don't actually matter. What matters is getting noticed, read and agreed with.

Having said that, I'm quite sure that many people don't care if bulleted lists will end in semi-colons. Moreover for powerpoint presentations and billboards, I would argue that the semi-colons and ",and"-thing will only distract people.

[JP]

Another excellent reason why the AP Stylebook is a lacking resource for PR professionals. Bulleted lists aren't very useful or relevant to journalists and newspapers, but they are very much so for PR and business communication professionals. This is why I increasingly believe PR needs to create its own stylebook and stop relying on the AP Stylebook as the end-all, be-all style resource.