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Punctuation. Full stops

    The content of these guidelines is taken from the third edition of the Vives University Network’s Interuniversity Style Guide for Writing Institutional Texts, an interuniversity project in which the UPC participates with the support of the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Government of Catalonia.

       

      Indirect questions

      • Use a full stop, not a question mark, after an indirect question.

        He asked what the requirements were.

       

      Items in lists

      • Use full stops after the numbers or letters used to list the elements of a summary.

        1. Prepare the report.
        2. Send copies to all members.

        A. Punctuate properly.
        B. Write simply.

      • The individual items in vertical lists should only be followed by full stops when they form complete sentences (as above), not when they are simply nouns or noun phrases (as below).

        Bachelor's degrees:
        1. Law
        2. Chemistry
        3. History

      • Punctuate information contained in a list written in sentence form with a comma after each item in the list and the conjunction and or or befor the last item, which is punctuated with a full stop.

        To qualify for the master's programme
        1. your undergraduate degree must be officially recognised,
        2. you must have a CEFR B2-level command of English, and
        3. you must submit official transcripts of your undergraduate studies.


      • If the list consists of sentences punctuated with a full stop, the phrase introducing the list must end in a colon (as in the example) or a full stop.

        Requirements for admission to the master's programme:
        1. Your undergraduate degree must be officially recognised.
        2. You must have a CEFR B2-level command of English.
        3. You must submit official transcripts of your undergraduate studies.

       

      Headings

      • Do not use full stops at the end of headings.

        Doctoral degree requirements
        Doctoral students are required to submit at least three progress reports during the first two months of the research period. The templates for these reports can be accessed at the following link. Further requirements…

      • Use full stops (not colons) in run-in heads, which should be italicised or written in boldface to make them stand out.

        Doctoral degree requirements. Doctoral students are required to submit at least three progress reports during the first two months of the research period. The templates for these reports can be accessed online.

       

      Sentences ending in abbreviations

        • If an abbreviation that takes a final point ends the sentence, this final point functions as the full stop.

          The new faculty service provides updates on roundtables, forums, seminars, courses, etc.
          This research is the initiative of a number of companies, including Apple Inc.
          The tour of the Aula Magna will end at 2.30 p.m.

        • In the case of questions and exclamations, however, finish the sentence with the final point of the abbreviation followed by a question mark or exclamation mark.

          Can this department really base its future decisions on the findings of Brown et al.?
          This was hardly the position adopted by Washington D.C.!

       

      Footnotes and endnotes

        • End all footnotes and endnotes with a full stop.