Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

punctuation marks and capital letters

English answer:

no punctuation after the bulleted items

Added to glossary by lindaellen (X)
Mar 26, 2009 08:19
15 yrs ago
2 viewers *
English term

punctuation marks and capital letters

English Other Other
ХХХ interacts with:
• the RF Government
• the Bank of Russia
• the Moscow City Government
• regional authorities.

What punctuation marks are necessary here and should the definite articles and the word "regional" begin with capital letters?
Change log

Apr 2, 2009 06:03: lindaellen (X) Created KOG entry

Discussion

Yelena Pestereva (asker) Apr 2, 2009:
Thanks to everybody, especially to Peter for his interesting opinion.

Responses

+4
45 mins
Selected

no punctuation after the bulleted items

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, p.314, bullets are a subcategory of "the outline style" and don't have punctuation marks. The colon after "with" is good, but l leave out the others as it looks less cluttered. The bulltets themsleves indicate separate items. The caps as you use them are correct.
Peer comment(s):

agree Andrew Mason
2 mins
agree cmwilliams (X) : no semi-colons
46 mins
agree BrettMN
6 hrs
agree Cilian O'Tuama : the bullets themselves serve as punctuation marks, but it gets more complicated if some bullet points are full sentences
11 days
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
+2
20 mins

(;)..."regional"

ХХХ interacts with:
• the RF Government;
• the Bank of Russia;
• the Moscow City Government;
• regional authorities.
Peer comment(s):

agree Monika Silea
4 mins
thank you
agree Lingua.Franca
18 mins
thank you
neutral Andrew Mason : Frankly, the use od the semi-colons is overkill. When using bullets there is no need for them
25 mins
thank you
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21 mins

As you have cited them; Consider "Oblast" and "Krai"

The term "RF" may cause mild confusion with France (Republique Francaise) or the mildest bewilderment as to what is meant, so I would spell it out in full (The Russian Federation). The others should remain as cited by you.

"Regional" ought _not_ to be in inverted commas. In this context, inverted commas would imply a pejorative attitude (i. e., that we should all snigger at local government). Instead of the word "regional", I would consider using the word "local" (as in "local government" -- a blanket term in British English and some other English dialects for local authorities of all tiers).

Another option in the "regional" context would be to consider using the words "Oblast" and/or "Krai" which would inject a Russian reality into the text. "Oblast", at least, is reasonably known in English to mean a Russian lcal government tier. In this case, the Russian words ouught to have initial capitals (and/or be set in italic type) as markers of their "foregnness".

The definitive article ought _not_ to have an initial capital unless you are citing a single entity ("The Bank of Russia") in a formal manner. If the entity is part of a list alongside others, then definitely no initial capital.

The phrase "regional authorities" ought also _not_ to have initial capitals, since we are discussing an entire tier ("layer") of government units, without being specific. There is a 35% case for an initial capitals in this context, expecially if you were aiming for greater formality. My personal preference is to use lowercase.

Trust this is of help!
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-2
1 hr

Capitalize the T's

ХХХ interacts with:
• The RF Government
• The Bank of Russia
• The Moscow City Government
• regional authorities.

You should capitalize the "T" as they are the names they would use in a business environment, but there is no need to use capitals on regional authorities as this is a general accreditation for various un-specified authorities.
Example; The Australian Newspaper .

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=gmail&q=The Australian...

Or as in these examples;

http://business.theage.com.au/

DAN OAKES 4:50pm | Telstra's chief financial officer urges investors to ignore "analyst and media scaremongering''.

* Michael Pascoe Cultural cringe and the debt binge
* Rio Tinto shelves plant in WA
* Brickworks sees stimulus boosting building products
* BHP cuts 400 mining jobs in Qld
* B&B Infrastructure lines up Dalrymple sale
* Lower rates to stoke housing rebound: RBA
* More Business News and Views

Aussie shares rise for a fourth day, closing at their highest since January 14, as investors pour back into resources.

* Asian shares hit 11-week high
* Dollar still has some steam
* Greenback recovers from Geithner gaffe
* Oil follow equities higher
* Gold barely budges


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Note added at 1 hr (2009-03-26 09:42:38 GMT)
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As for RF, I would leave it, if it was cited previously in the text as relating to the Russian Federation, if not use the full words.

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Note added at 1 hr (2009-03-26 09:48:07 GMT)
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The Australian, national and international news, with indepth business sections including; The Australian IT, Higher Education, Media, and Aviation ...

Notice the use of Capitals in the above line after commas... he same applies to dot point lines.
Peer comment(s):

disagree BrettMN : The difference between the list here and the examples you've cited is that yours are stand-alone sentences, and these are fragments that all together form one sentence: "XXX interacts with the RF government, the Bank of Russia..." No capping needed here.
6 hrs
Thanks Brett, I am sure from reading the sentences there will be clarafication about how XXX interactes between each of the listed entities in text further in the form.
disagree Cilian O'Tuama : caps only if the "The" is part of the name. In most cases it's not (the Bank of Scotland, the USA, the Declaration of Independence, the All Blacks...)
11 days
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+1
7 hrs

no punctuation after bullets and lowercase some words

I would change it to:

ХХХ interacts with:
• the RF government
• the Bank of Russia
• the Moscow city government
• regional authorities

--

Reason: The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) rule 8.66 states that "the generic names for [legislative, deliberative, administrative...] bodies [are usually lowercased] when used alone."

"The RF government" is a rather generic term and not (comparable in CMS 8.67 to the example there of "German parliament") a proper name. You will much more often, to use another example, see "the U.S. government" with "government" lowercased.

Likewise with the "Moscow city government." I see no real reason to capitalize "city" or "government" there.

Of course, RF (Russian Federation) and the Bank of Russia should remain capitalized, since they're proper names. See CMS 8.55 and the first part of CMS 8.66 for the reasons for that.
Peer comment(s):

agree Cilian O'Tuama : agree that gov. and city do not need caps unless that's what they call themselves (proper noun)
11 days
Thanks!
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19 hrs

another way to avoid the problem -- rewrite the lead phrase

ХХХ interacts with the:
• RF Government
• Bank of Russia
• Moscow City Government
• regional authorities

This puts the most important word at the beginning of the bullet ("the" is generally not considered important) and you will be forgiven if any of the entities uses "The" as part of its formal name (I don't think that's the case in your list).

I agree that RF should be written out to remove ambiguity.

It is your choice whether you use punctuation. Since the items in the list are not sentences, it is OK to use no punctuation. If you do choose to use periods at the end of each, make sure you start each line with a capital letter. Commas and semicolons were once common, but they are generally considered old-fashioned or stuffy now, and spare punctuation is preferred.

In terms of punctuation, the most important thing is to use the same style for bulleted items throughout the document.
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