Do you avoid full stops in lists, captions, and immediately after a URL?
Excess punctuation without purpose can make a document or web content look unnecessarily busy. It adds unexpected visual clutter, especially in short or standalone text like list items, captions. For URLs, the reason is not just visual - adding a period at the end can break the link when it's copied or clicked.
List items
Bullet points should be short and sharp, and should generally not require full stops at all.
- Sentence one.
- Sentence two.
- Sentence three.
Figure: Bad example - Too much punctuation
- Sentence one
- Sentence two
- Sentence three
Figure: Good example - Clean with no full stops
Captions
Image captions should be short and sharp, and should generally not require full stops at all.
{{ IMAGE }}
Figure: A group of people in a meeting room.
Figure: Bad example - Too much punctuation
{{ IMAGE }}
Figure: A group of people in a meeting room
Figure: Good example - Clean with no full stops
What about multiple sentences in one element?
If your bullet point or caption has more than one sentence, consider rephrasing it, or using a different separator - like a dash; you could also consider a semicolon instead.
However, if it is necessary to have more than one sentence in these items (should be rare) a full stop is needed. In this case, you should end with a full stop for consistency and completeness.
Reminder: The rest of figure captions and the bullet points on content should not have full stops.
{{ IMAGE }}
Figure: A group of people in a meeting room. They appear to be engaged in a discussion
- Sentence one
- Sentence two. Sentence three
- Sentence four. Sentence five. Sentence six
- Sentence seven
Figure: Bad example - A multi-sentence item becomes a mini-paragraph - not ending it with a full stop looks inconsistent
{{ IMAGE }}
Figure: A group of people in a meeting room. They appear to be engaged in a discussion.
- Sentence one
- Sentence two. Sentence three.
- Sentence four. Sentence five. Sentence six.
- Sentence seven
Figure: Good example - Multi-sentence items should end with a full stop for consistency
URLs
Descriptive links are recommended whenever possible, but if you must display the raw URL, remember to avoid adding a full stop at the end, as it can break the link when copied or clicked.
For more information, visit https://ssw.com.au/employment.
Figure: Bad example - Full stop at the end can break the link
For more information, visit https://ssw.com.au/employment
Figure: Good example - No full stop after the URL