What are bullet points?
Bullet points help organise information and make it easier to read.
They turn long sentences or complex ideas into clear, simple lists.
It is important to be consistent, especially in how you use capital letters and punctuation.
Guidelines for bullet points:
- Start with a main clause followed by a colon
- Keep each point short and clear
- Add a full stop at the end of the final bullet point.
When to use bullet points
Join Anika in her potion lab as she uses bullet points to help her perfect her enchanted recipe!
How to use bullet points
Bullet points and lists help make information clearer and easier to read.
When using bullet points, it’s important to be consistent across your whole piece of writing.
Whether you choose to use capital letters or not, its best to stick to one approach.
If you are unsure, follow these guidelines:
- Use a capital letter for proper nouns
- Use a capital letter for sentences
- Don't use a capital letter for noun phrases.
There are some rules, however, that should always be followed:
- Start with a main clause followed by a colon (unless it is a subtitle)
- No commas or conjunctions between points
- Keep each point brief
- End the final point with a full stop.
Example 1
Anika’s recipe for her invisibility fizz potion is written in one long sentence.
Rewrite the sentence below as a clear set of bullet points.
To make the potion, you need 3 dragon scales, a dash of moonlight, one handful of mint leaves, 200ml of crystal water and a sprinkle of silver dust.
✓ Here is the sentence rewritten using bullet points.
To make the potion you need:
three dragon scales
a dash of moonlight
one handful of mint leaves
200ml of crystal water
a sprinkle of silver dust.
Don’t forget to add a full stop on the final point.
Example 2
This list of potion side-effects is full of errors.
Rewrite the bullet points below fixing the mistakes.
The potion may cause the following side effects:
- rapid hair growth,
- and floating
- Glowing red fingers
✓ Here are the corrected bullet points.
The potion may cause the following side effects:
rapid hair growth
floating
glowing red fingers.
There are quite a few things wrong with the original list:
- There shouldn’t be a comma after ‘rapid hair growth’
- The word ‘and’ shouldn’t be used in a bulleted list
- The last point doesn’t need a capital letter
- There needs to be a full stop after the final bullet.
Example 3
Bullet points can be used directly after a subtitle in a larger piece of writing but some of the guidelines are different.
Here is the ingredient list from Anika’s recipe. It has the subtitle ‘Ingredients’, with the items listed underneath.
Ingredients
- A tulip stem
- The zest of a lemon
- A shard of willow bark.
In what ways is this set of bullet points above different?
✓ This time, a colon isn’t needed because a subtitle is used instead of a lead-in sentence.
Additionally, because there’s no lead-in sentence, capital letters are fine for this example.
Remember, whether you choose to capitalise or not, stay consistent throughout your whole piece of writing.
Task
Treasure hunt
Design a ‘map’ for a friend, but only using bullet points!
Rather than drawing the map to the treasure, write a set of instructions for how to find it.
You should be able to use bullet points and numbered points for this.
Remember to put some treasure at the end!
Play our fun English game Crystal Explorers! game
Use grammar, punctuation and spelling skills to explore jungles, caves and tombs on your mission.
More on Punctuation
Find out more by working through a topic
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