Bullet points

Bullet point lists are a good device for breaking up chunks of text and clarifying it.

The bullet point does the same job as a semi-colon (;) or comma in continuous text. Bulleted sentences therefore do not need a semi-colon after them.

If the bullet points form a list following a colon (:), each bullet point should start with a lowercase letter and there should only be a full stop at the end of the last bullet point. If you use a colon to introduce a bullet-point list, you do not need to add a dash to it. For example:

• abc
• def
• ghi.

If you find that Word automatically changes your initial lower case letter of bullet points to upper case, it is possible to stop this. Select AutoCorrect from the Tools menu and deselect Capitalise first letter of sentences. Click on OK to confirm your choice and close the window.

If the bullet points form separate sentences, each one should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. See the following example.

• Abc.
• Cde.
• Efg.

Traditional, circular bullet points look more professional than many of the symbols available in word-processing packages, especially for formal documents. If you want a list of points within a bulleted list you should use dashes.