The items in a list must be ‘parallel’ – that is, have the same grammatical construction, so that they all follow on from the text that introduces the list:
The main outcomes of the project were:
- identification of contributing factors
- development of an evaluation method
- completion of a preliminary evaluation. [Each item starts with a noun.]
The areas of action to be addressed in this quarter are:
- improving service delivery
- enhancing the customer interface
- strengthening the product’s optics online. [Each item starts with a verb.]
See Using parallel structure for more information on parallel constructions.
