What punctuation follows the introductory word to a list?
If the preceding sentence contains anticipatory phrases or words like as follows, thus, these, etc., use a colon: The German shepherd was trained to respond to these commands: • Heel • Attack • Recover or Our approach has the following drawbacks: • It conflicts with our technical strategy. • The cost structure leaves no margin for error. • The risk factors have not been realistically addressed. When the sentence is lengthy and the anticipatory word occurs very early in the sentence, use a period: The following steps may be initiated at any time during the procedure to ensure the viability of the final outcome. • Inspection • Analysis • Corrective action In paragraph lists where the list follows a preposition or a verb, do not precede the list with any mark of punctuation: Our customer will award the contract on the basis of (1) our perceived strengths, (2) our perceived weaknesses, and (3) our competitors’ perceived strengths and weaknesses. or We must (a) look sharp at all times, (b)
