Tag Archives: Lists

Seven key uses of the colon

By Punctuation – Colons, , , , , , , , ,

Colons, like semicolons, are a sadly neglected punctuation mark. They deserve to have their versatility recognised and used far more widely. Unlike semicolons, which have two functions (see my earlier post on ‘What do I use a semicolon for?’), colons have a number of uses. Here are the seven main uses for a colon. The

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In a dot-point list, does each item start with a capital letter and end with a full stop?

By Punctuation – Dot-point Lists, Punctuation – Full Stops, , , ,

No and no. In Australia, the widespread convention is that each item in a dot-point list starts with a lower-case letter; you can think of each point as ‘finishing’ the sentence that introduces the list. You only need to finish a point with a full stop if the point contains more than one sentence, otherwise

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