I’m putting together a PowerPoint presentation for the boss, with lots of bulleted lists and bulleted paragraphs.
The rules, as I understand them are:
Bulleted list, listed items are not complete sentences:
Don’t include a period.
Bulleted list, each bullet point is a complete sentence or paragraph:
Include a period.
Bulleted list, some bullets are complete sentences, some are not:
It’s okay to fudge to make it look consistent on the slide. I should err on side of leaving the period off everything if most list items are incomplete sentences.
This is driving me crazy, because as we go through edits, my boss will go through and either add periods to everything or remove them from everything, using a different standard every time, in a way that makes NO SENSE. I figure the way I do it I am covering the bases of correct punctuation while also making the slides look consistent.
I want to put this to bed once and for all. Teeming millions, back me up here? Or give me the correct rule? And a cite, if possible?
Since it’s Power Point, grammar doesn’t seem to matter; at least it doesn’t in my DOD briefings.
Unless your boss is a pedant, which I suspect he is if he has time to edit a Power Point presentation for period-use, I’d scrap the entire thing. He’ll never notice.
If this is one of the things he does notice, I would make every sentence a fragment and not put in the periods. Then I would send out my resume, because he sure isn’t busy thinking about the business.
Thanks guys. I need to remember that this is the same person who has me type things such as:
“When Ben Franklin first coined the phrase ‘Time is Money,’ he must have had this promotion in mind!”
And Ethilirist, I cannot presume to WRITE any of the bullet points. No, I only type them, make piddling little changes, and change the background color around 15,000 times. Often I must circle things on drafts and say “is that a word?”
Words like:
Impactful (instead of “high impact”)
Incent (instead of “provide incentives”)
I’m working with this same guy on a book as a freelance project, and he is 1,000 times easier to deal with on that. He loves my suggestions, my writing, my research, and discusses things like an intelligent person. But on these proposals, he and his partner (and wife) just become the irrational punctuation nazis, afraid they have left a comma out, adding periods indiscriminately…bleagh.
Magdalene, I’ve always done just as you describe in your OP. Sounds like the problem has been solved though, but FWIW, I think you’re correct with your rules for bullets.
However, sometimes (and no matter how much I hated doing it), I found it much easier to just do what the bosses said, no matter how wrong it was. Especially if they were the ones who presented the slides–usually, the audience saw them as the ones who made the errors, not me. Small consolation, I know, but I hope it helps.
As for the invented words you describe though–if I was told to use one of them, I’d be pretty incentsed.
Did anyone else think this thead was going to be about guns and tampons?
Only a cad would point out that “With periods” is not a complete sentence and as such by this rule should not have a period. Only a real cad would point out that technically “Your understanding of the English Language says only complete sentences get periods, use complete sentences.” isn’t really that complete of a sentence its own self.
My view is that a bulleted list is just a list. Points should be separated with commas or semicoluns as appropriate:
This promotion will be choc full of[li]whizz,[]bang, and[]wallop.[/li]
We will network the deliverables by[]incentivising the synergies;[]gilding the water-supported flora and/or fauna as appropriate; andrequiring a consultant to interpret the consultant’s report once it’s tabletopped.
But why have a bullet point if you’re separating the points by other punctuation? You should just be using colons and semi-colons in both lists. This promotion will be choc full of: whizz; bang; wallop. We will network the deliverables by: incentivising the synergies; gilding the water-supported flora and/or fauna as appropriate; requiring a consultant to interpret the consultant’s report once it’s tabletopped.
Also, a comma is used as a stand-in for the word “and” in a list (e.g. bread and milk and eggs and sugar becomes bread, milk, eggs and sugar) so you never use a comma and the word “and” next to each other in a list.
All of this goes to show why PowerPoint presentations are largely wastes of time, especially since every PP presentation to which I’ve ever been subjected has always been accompanied by printouts of all the slides and has been larded with extra effects which serve no useful purpose other than demonstrating that whoever did the slides knows how to point and click in a PP environment.
