Punctuation for a detailed list...
I am breifly listing FedEx Corporation's capital expenditures for FY2012. I am not going into detail on each expenditure, but I do want to list what the company invested in and the amount.
See example:
In fiscal year 2012, FedEx Corporation made significant investments of $1.9 billion in aircraft and related equipment, $638 million in facilities and sort equipment, $723 million in vehicles and fleet equipment, $541 million in information technology, and $230 million in other equipment totaling $4 billion in total capital expenditures.
1 answer 
I think you only need to add a comma before totaling, but the ending needs a bit of tweaking. When you are writing a list, there is a comma between each one, which is what you did. If each piece of the list is complicated or one already includes a comma, then the list is set apart with semi-colons instead of commas to avoid confusion. Your list is pretty easy to follow, so I would stick with the commas.
The last part is a dependent clause that is not part of the list. It needs to be set apart with a comma. However, “totaling $4 billion in total” is redundant. There are a few things you can do here. You can add the last comma and stick with “totaling $4 billion in capital expenditures.”
You can move the dependent clause and make it part of the beginning of the sentence.
In fiscal year 2012, FedEx Corporation reported $4 billion in capital expenditures with significant investments… .
Another alternative is to make it into two sentences. Either list the significant investments first, with the second sentence expressing what the total was, or the other way around.
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answered Nov 29 '12 at 23:47
Patty T
Grammarly Fellow
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