Have you noticed this too? Over the past few years it seems like everyone's slides have periods after every bullet. Not just bullets that are grammatical sentences, but every one! I've only been at my current company for about 4 years, so I'm not sure if it's a company style or a scourge that Power Point has brought to our PPT-filed lives.
There seems to be some online discussion about it
(https://www.quora.com/Do-you-use-periods-in-PowerPoint-presentations),
and I've seen a couple recommendations advising to only use them with
grammatical sentences. But this is something I've always had a gut (negative)
feeling about, so here's my attempt at the argument against periods in
bullets…as bullets of course! :)
1.
They are extra visual content that doesn't carry
meaning. As such, they violate principals of parsimony and avoiding visual
clutter (Tufte's data-to-ink ratio)
2.
You just don't need them. Think about what a
period does. It separate sentences (individual thoughts or ideas) in paragraph
(a series of running text). You don't have that in bullets (except these, and
I'm using periods here). In bullets, particularly within slides, thoughts are
separated by bulleting and structured by indenting.
3.
It makes it look like you don't know what a
sentence is. Of course, so does having no period when there should be one. But
overall, I prefer that imprecision to the other. Plus, good bullets shouldn't
be full sentences (generally-speaking). If you're writing a lot of text that
needs to be punctuated, like these bullets, you should probably edit your
slides one more time.
With that in mind (and realizing that the
"bullets" above make it look like I don't know what a sentence is),
here's a revised version of them, as if edited for a PPT presentation.
1. Extra visual content and clutter
- Doesn't carry meaning
- Reduces "data-to-ink" ratio (Tufte)
2.
Don't need them…plain and simple
- Periods separate sentences (thoughts or ideas) in a paragraph (running text)
- Bullets are separated by vertical space (hard return)
- Structured by indenting
3. Looks like presenter doesn't know what a sentence is
- Trade-off: No period when there should be one (preferred)
- Good bullets shouldn't (usually) be full sentence
- Reduce bullets to essential text to communicate ideas (review and edit)
