The Colon: The Colon and the Semicolon.
How to Punctuate and Capitalise Bullet Points. Everyone loves a vertical list. They’re easy to read. They look good. Why wouldn’t you want to add a list to your work? The tricky thing is punctuation. Do you need a colon to introduce a list? Should each point start with a capital letter and end with a full stop? So many choices to make! To help, we’ve prepared a guide to punctuating and.
There may indeed be a sentence after the colon, but the original sentence has not ended yet! With the exception of proper nouns, it is amazing to see capitals in the middle of a sentence, and very unusual (to be polite) -- in fact, highly irregular -- to see experts accepting it, even if apparently sanctioned by certain style guides and conventions!
Punctuating with capital letters One of the most common errors in essay writing is the misuse of capital letters (upper case letters). Students tend to use capital letters for everything that feels important to them. Excessive capitalisation is distracting and confusing for the reader, and is often just incorrect punctuation. On the other hand, lack of necessary capitalisation can appear.
Some writers and editors feel that capitalizing a complete sentence after a colon is always advisable. Others advise against it. Still others regard it as a judgment call: If what follows the colon is closely related to what precedes it, there is no need for a capital. But if what follows is a general or formal statement, many writers and editors capitalize the first word.
Capitalizing after semicolons or colons. When it comes to the question of whether to capitalize the first word after a semicolon or colon, the answer is likely “it depends”. Often, the decision requires identifying the independent and dependent clauses in the sentence. As a reminder, independent clauses, also known as restrictive clauses, contain a subject and a verb and can act as a.
The MLA Style Center. Search for: Buy the Book; Menu; Sections; Using MLA Format; Works Cited: A Quick Guide; Ask the MLA; Teaching Resources; What’s New in the Eighth Edition; Behind the Style; Formatting a Research Paper; Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty; Sample Papers in MLA Style; Quiz: Colons Think you know when to use a colon in your writing? Test your ability by identifying which.
Yes, it is necessary, if what follows the colon is a complete sentence. Punctuation that ends a previous sentence does not change the sentence capitalization rule. Here is an example of a sentence that needs to start with a capital letter: This is a complete sentence that contains a subject and a verb.