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I believe one rule is, you don't use a colon if the lead-in ends in a
verb or a preposition. And another says, no colon is used if the lead-in
phrase is an incomplete thought. And, another says, use a colon when you
use any form of "follow" in the lead-in. And, I have seen corporate
style guides say, always use a colon with a lead-in because: 1) it's
easier to remember and 2) your audience expects it.
Cheers.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sean -dot- brierley=ipc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sean -dot- brierley=ipc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Lauren
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:30 PM
To: 'Combs, Richard'; 'Hemang Antani'; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Sentense construction
Hemang,
I don't like, and was taught to avoid, leading sentences that end in a
colon, unless the bullets complete the leading sentence. In this case,
I would avoid the colon and lead the list with "The points from the
meeting follow."
I would also probably, depending on the context of the document, include
some identifier about the meeting in the sentence, whether it is a
meeting name or a date.
Additionally, both of the proposed sentences are acceptable, but
sentence 2 does need the comma that Richard pointed out. The
differences between the two sentences are that 1 is "active" voice and 2
is "passive" voice. This is important to know if someone should mention
the voice in the document.
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