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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34151
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34151
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It depends on the context. In technical writing, using the list format is generally preferred. In a novel, you would always keep the list inline. In popular non-fiction you will find both styles used.

There are some markup language that will allow you to enter a list as a substructure within a paragraph.

    <p>The school has a vegetable garden in which the children grow
    <ul>
    <li>cabbages,</li>
    <li>onions,</li>
    <li>potatoes, and</li>
    <li>carrots</li>
    </ul>
    during their free time.</p>

Lightweight markup languages like Markdown, however, don't have an easy way to represent the difference between a list being inside as opposed to after a paragraph. The distinction is a sufficiently subtle one that most authors are probably not going to do it consistently anyway, so might want to avoid formatting that depends on it, or else avoid writing the paragraph in a way that puts the list in the middle. It is usually pretty easy to recast things so that the list comes at the end:

    <p>The school has a vegetable garden in which 
    the children can spend their free time growing:
    <ul>
    <li>cabbages,</li>
    <li>onions,</li>
    <li>potatoes, and</li>
    <li>carrots</li>
    </ul>
    </p>

And once you recast it like this, the difference between the list being in or under the paragraph becomes moot and you can just as easily do this:

    <p>The school has a vegetable garden in which 
    the children can spend their free time growing:</p>
    <ul>
    <li>cabbages,</li>
    <li>onions,</li>
    <li>potatoes, and</li>
    <li>carrots</li>
    </ul>

BTW, when it comes to lists, it is common practice not to carry sentence punctuation over into the list. Think of the list as an alternate form of punctuation. Therefore you should drop the commas and the 'and'.

    <p>The school has a vegetable garden in which 
    the children can spend their free time growing:</p>
    <ul>
    <li>cabbages</li>
    <li>onions</li>
    <li>potatoes</li>
    <li>carrots</li>
    </ul>

Original score: 2