Bulleted and numbered lists

Bullet points begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop when:

• they are used as stand alone statements
• when they are full sentences that follow a lead-in sentence.

Example

The committee came to two important conclusions:

• Officers will develop guidelines for future investigations.
• Research should be funded in the three priority areas.

Bullet points that complete a lead-in sentence:

• are not punctuated, but take a full stop on the final point
• do not have and at the end of the second last point
• should all have parallel grammatical structure.

Example

The data is important for:

• assessing agricultural productivity
• conducting cost-benefit analyses.

Not:

The data are important for:

• The assessment of agricultural productivity;
• Conducting cost-benefit analyses; and
• To develop solutions.

Numbered (or ordered) lists

Use ordered lists with numbers or letters instead of bullets to show priority or chronology when the list or where items need to be identified for later reference.