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I want to use an incomplete sentence to introduce a list of items but I could not find any punctuation guide on this. If I remember correctly, I have seen people using hyphens for it.

Example: If you would like proceed, please indicate-

  1. whether you are 18 or above;
  2. whether you have enough deposit in your account; and
  3. the effective date for the changes.

I would like to know if the hyphen after "indicate" is used correctly. And should I capitalize the first word of each item. Thanks a lot.

Edit: Thank you for your help. However, my confusion here is that, in my example, "please indicate" can be paired up the any of the three items in list to form a complete and independent sentence, e.g. "please indicate whether you are 18 or above."

The example of the usage of colon I saw in the related posts is not quite the same:

There are two types of insects:

(a) white

(b) black

"There are two types of insects white" is not a correct sentence.

FindingNemo
  • 989

1 Answers1

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I haven't seen a hyphen, or even an em dash (they're different), used in this way.

The punctuation would be much the same as if you didn't have numbers:

If you would like proceed, please indicate whether you are 18 or above, whether you have enough deposit in your account, and the effective date for the changes.

or

If you would like proceed, please indicate: whether you are 18 or above; whether you have enough deposit in your account; and the effective date for the changes.

The colon, using semicolons as you already do, is a common style. Replace the - above with a : and nobody will raise an eyebrow. :)

Maverick
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