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How should lists of questions be punctuated?

English Language & Usage Asked on May 25, 2021

If one wishes to pose a series of questions in the form of a list, how would one go about punctuating that list?

For example:

I write to a colleague asking for an update on a project he is working on. I phrase my request like so:

Dear xxx,

How are you doing with regard to:
– Sourcing the moose hair
– Reticulating the splines
– Extolling the virtues of silk underwear
– Estimating the project completion time

In this case, should question marks be placed after each bulleted item? Or should one only be placed after the last item? If this is the case, should semi colons be placed after each item?

E.g.

  • Extolling the virtues of silk underwear?
  • Estimating the project completion time?

or

  • Extolling the virtues of silk underwear;
  • Estimating the project completion time?

2 Answers

I'd do something like

Dear xxx,

How are you doing with regard to

  • sourcing the moose hair,
  • reticulating the splines,
  • extolling the virtues of silk underwear, and
  • estimating the project completion time?

Basically, this just takes an ordinary list, punctuated as an ordinary list would be, and adds list bullets to aid readability. If you really wanted to, you could retain the colon after "with regard to", but I don't think it's necessary.

As with an ordinary list, if any of the list items contains a comma already, then replace the list-separator commas with semicolons:

How are you doing with regard to

  • sourcing the moose hair, lamb tail, and armadillo feathers;
  • reticulating the splines;
  • extolling the virtues of silk underwear; and
  • estimating the project completion time?

Correct answer by Marthaª on May 25, 2021

A list is not really a sentence, so how you have it in your original quote would be fine. If you are looking to write out an entire sentence, you would place commas between each (being that the items are not clauses) and a question mark at the end:

How are you doing with regard to sourcing the moose hair, reticulating the splines, extolling the virtues of silk underwear, and estimating the project completion time?

Answered by snumpy on May 25, 2021

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