Leading with a list

I'd put a colon, but I can't guarantee that's any more correct than the way you have it.

OK. Not looking this up, and going with Chicago's rules here ...


1) It doesn't matter what you have a list of. The rules are the same for people, book titles, ideals, or ripe fruits.
Sentence fragments are fine in informal writing.
You can use them anywhere you want in an article, not just at the beginning.



2) Whether it's commas or semicolons separating elements of a list, no special punctuation is needed 'after a list'.


Jenny, Myrna, and Estelle shot the deputy.

Plaudits accrued, as Daniel, Gregory, and the other Postmodernists persevered.

Hand me the wrench, the tackle box, and the ham sandwich on the TV.



3) That said, an extra comma may be added to clarify meaning after a series.
( well ... this sort of clarifying comma can be added about anywhere.)

Hand me the wrench, the tackle box, and the ham sandwich that Susie made me, on the TV.



4) Looking at your particular example ...

A South Korean belly-dancer, an assortment of South African politicians, and the inner circle of the White House.


It doesn't matter that your sentence fragment is a list. The ending punctuation of the sentence fragment would be handled just like any other sentence fragment.

Sentence fragments can end with a period, exclamation point, question mark, ellipsis or em dash.

Sentence fragments cannot end with a comma, semicolon or colon. When these are used, the sentence continues.

When using an em dash or ellipsis at the end of a sentence fragment, it is necessaary to show that the next word begins a new sentence. If this cannot be done by capitalization - as in your case -- you'll need to recast the phrases for clarity.

KansasWriter said:

When leading with a list of people, what punctuation, if any, is necessary after the list. For example:

[FONT=&quot]A South Korean belly-dancer, an assortment of South African politicians, and the inner circle of the White House. Hollywood’s newest political thriller? [/FONT]

Click to expand...

A colon or maybe an em-dash would work for me. But like Shadow_Ferret, I'm not sure there's anything wrong with what you have.

I don't think the listiness of it matters. You can have the same structure with only one item. And the fact that it's people certainly doesn't.There's no way to get a complete sentence out of it: not the first part, not the second part, not both parts together. So I'm not sure "correct" punctuation is a meaningful question here.