BULLETS, NUMBERS AND LISTS: HOW SMALL ERRORS HAVE A BIG IMPACT
Which stands out more: structuring sentences into a
paragraph or breaking them into a bulleted/numbered list?
| Sentences in a paragraph |
A bulleted list |
| Most text in reports, articles and proposals appears as sentences in paragraphs.
Each sentence leads on to the next one. However, when under time pressure, or
especially when reading web pages, readers often skip over sentences. |
- breaks up information
- stands out on the page
- is less likely to be skipped.
|
Lists, bullets and numbers help to make text stand out (especially when they're
used sparingly). But if there are errors in the text, those errors will stand out
too. It doesn't matter that details like capitalization or punctuation inconsistencies
seem small. The truth is that if they're in a bulleted/numbered list, they'll leap
out at readers.
What Matters is Consistency
If items in a list are full sentences, then they should
start with a capital letter. If not, then capitalizing the first letter is
optional.
“If your list item isn't a complete
sentence, you can choose whether or not to capitalize the first letter - it's a
style issue. The only thing that is important is to be consistent.”
— Mignon Fogarty, aka
Grammar Girl
In the same way, if items in a list are full sentences then
they should end with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. If they're
not sentences, then options include commas, semi-colons and no punctuation.
Once again, the key is consistency.
A Shockingly Common Error
We decided to test if authors actually stick to these rules.
We used PerfectIt – Intelligent Editing's add-in for MS Word – to check 2400
documents published online for inconsistencies. PerfectIt provides a powerful way
to compare the frequency of inconsistencies because it automatically checks
bulleted and numbered lists for both capitalization and punctuation inconsistencies.
Each of the 2400 documents we tested was over 1000 words and
was downloaded from the internet using the search term "final
report".
The results were shocking. Over 4 in 10 documents suffered
from inconsistent punctuation of bulleted/numbered lists. Furthermore, 7%
suffered from inconsistencies in capitalizing lists. But that's not all. Of
those 2400 documents, 600 didn't contain any bulleted or numbered lists. So if
we restrict the analysis to documents that contained lists, then the proportion
is even higher. In fact, more than half the documents published online that
contain lists have problems with inconsistent bullet punctuation.
Things Can Only Get Better
It's easy to be downbeat about the frequency of errors
creeping into documents. However, it's actually an opportunity. It takes only a
small amount of extra care and attention to make sure that your documents don't
suffer from these mistakes. With a bit of extra checking, your proposal,
article, thesis or report will stand out from the crowd in the best way
possible.
A great way to achieve this is to use PerfectIt. PerfectIt checks every
bulleted and numbered list in your document in seconds, giving you the option
to quickly correct any inconsistencies. Moreover, PerfectIt can be customized
to check your style guide and your preferences. So you can be confident that your
documents look the best they can.
PerfectIt has a 30-day free trial and can be downloaded from
the Intelligent Editing website.