The Canadian Style
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- - Close Punctuation
- Introduction to Punctuation
- Spacing
- The Period, Main purpose
- Imperatives, exclamations and indirect questions
- Ellipsis points
- Leaders
- Other uses
- Periods properly omitted
- The Question Mark, Main purpose
- Requests, indirect questions and other uses
- The Exclamation Mark, Main purpose
- The Exclamation Mark, Miscellaneous
- The Comma, General
- Restrictive/non-restrictive
- The Comma, Co-ordinate elements
- Clarity and emphasis
- Omitted words
- Quotations, etc.
- Names and titles
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- Commas properly omitted
- The Semicolon, Between independent clauses
- The Semicolon, Co-ordinate elements
- Misuse and overuse
- The Colon, Between independent clauses
- Annunciatory function
- The Colon, Miscellaneous
- Misuse
- Parentheses, General
- Clarification
- Punctuation with parentheses
- Afterthoughts and asides
- Parentheses within parentheses
- Legal documents
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- Square Brackets, General
- Use within parentheses
- Use
- Multiples
- The Em Dash, General
- Enumerations
- Interruptions, pauses, afterthoughts, clarifications and emphasis
- Summarizing
- Material in apposition
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- Lists and tables
- Punctuation with em dash
- The En Dash, Numerals
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- Compound words
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- Possession
- Inanimate possessors
- Compounds
- Two nouns (group genitive)
- Geographical names
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- Its
- Contractions
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- Vertical Lists, General
- Use of colon
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7.66 Use of colon
The colon is generally used to introduce vertical lists. When the sequence of a list is random or arbitrary, the various elements may be simply indented or set off with bullets or em dashes:
These factors should determine committee size:
- Number of employees at the work site
- Variety of functions
- Number of trade unions
- Number of shifts
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