Grammar rules for lists

Question

Hi all,A student of mine who is thinking about emigrating to New Zealand brought me the following example of a list:http://www.immigration.govt.nz/nzopportunities/live/ Look at the yellow post-it note. It says...Check these first:-Are you healty?-Are of good character?-Have a high standard of English?Somehow I feel that this list does not work.  Can you really omit the subject in items 2 and 3, and combine this with changing the verb from "are" to "have" ?  Shouldn`t that read:Check these first:-Are you healthy?-Are you of good character?-Do you have a high standard of English?Or possibly:Check first that you:- are healthy.- are of good character.- have a high standard of English.All comments will be appreciated.

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Hello Mr. Patrick,

Welcome to the forums.

You have noticed the lack of parallel structure in the bullets. It's one of the things I always look for when I edit. It's not strictly "ungrammatical," because bullets don't really have to follow the same rules as prose, but it violates the rules for most style guides.

Both of your suggestions are okay, but I prefer the first one. The reader doesn't have to work as hard to complete the sentence.

Another option - although I still prefer the first - is:

You must:

be healthy

be of good character

have a high standard of English

Anonymous · Answer

0 beginning sentences using infinitive 0-

BarbaraPA · Answer

0 Anon, what do you mean, please? 0-

Peaceblinkfriend · Answer

0 Hi Grammar Geek and Mr. Patrick for bring up this.01blockquote

01cite10Grammar Geek12cite10You have noticed the lack of11font10 parallel structure 12font10in the bullets. It's one of the things I always look for when I edit. It's not strictly "ungrammatical," because bullets don't really have to follow the same rules as prose, but it violates the rules for most style guides.12br
12blockquote

10Grammer Geek, could you please briefly explain what parallel structure means ? I have seen this phrase before but I have not a clue what it means. 02br
02br
00Thank you very much.02br
02br
00E0-

BarbaraPA · Answer

0Parallel structure means that all the elements are in the same form.02br
02br
00For example, if some are noun phrases and then you through a sentence in, they are not parallel02br
02br
01font00Why should you use us? We offer:02font02br
01ul

01font00A commitement to excellent service02font02li

01font00A highly dedicated team02font02li

01font00We do the job right - 02font01i00this one is NOT parallel with the others02i02li

00All of the items in a bulleted list should be able to fit into a sentence in the same way.02br
02br
01font00My friend Sue:02font02br
01ul

01font00Fun02font02li

01font00Smart02font02li

01font00A good friend02font02li

01font00Enjoys her dog - 02font01i00this one is NOT parallel with the others02i02li

00In that case, you should be able to simply comlete the sentence "My friend Sue is ____ " with the items in the list.02br
02br
00So, if you go back to the very first list in the first post, do you see how they are not parallel? You can't complete 01i00the same sentence 02i00using all of the bullets.0-

Anonymous · Answer

Surely if you are creating a list and use a colon, the sentence preceding the colon must be a complete sentence?!?  Therefore all of the lists except the first one provided by Mr. Patrick are incorrect, are they not (despite the lack of parallel structure)?

BarbaraPA · Answer

AnonymousSurely if you are creating a list and use a colon, the sentence preceding the colon must be a complete sentence?!?

I don't agree with this at all.

If you are creating a brochure for a trip, and you want to provide a list of what participants should bring, you certainly write

Trip essentials:

Sturdy hiking shoes

Water bottle

Sun screen

Snack

Rain gear

You don't have to write

A number of items are essential for your trip:

These are isues of style, not grammar. Your style does not agree with any of the ones I've used. That doesn't make yours wrong and mine right, nor the opposite.

Grammar rules for lists

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