I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to do this, maybe you should use a different environment for that. The following patches \item inside every itemize environment to add a semicolon after the first, and the \enditemize macro is changed to add a dot. You can no longer nest itemize environments with this simple approach. All in all I think this creates more problems than it solves...

\documentclass[]{article} \usepackage{etoolbox} \AtBeginEnvironment{itemize} {% \def\itemizepunctionation{\def\itemizepunctionation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctionation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } \newenvironment{punctitemize} {% \itemize \def\itemizepunctionation{\def\itemizepunctionation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctionation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } {% \enditemize } \begin{document} \begin{itemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{itemize} \begin{punctitemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{punctitemize} \end{document} 

EDIT: added the environment approach, nesting is still not supported.

I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to do this, maybe you should use a different environment for that. The following patches \item inside every itemize environment to add a semicolon after the first, and the \enditemize macro is changed to add a dot. You can no longer nest itemize environments with this simple approach. All in all I think this creates more problems than it solves...

\documentclass[]{article} \usepackage{etoolbox} \AtBeginEnvironment{itemize} {% \def\itemizepunctuation{\def\itemizepunctuation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctuation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } \newenvironment{punctitemize} {% \itemize \def\itemizepunctuation{\def\itemizepunctuation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctuation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } {% \enditemize } \begin{document} \begin{itemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{itemize} \begin{punctitemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{punctitemize} \end{document} 

EDIT: added the environment approach, nesting is still not supported.

I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to do this, maybe you should use a different environment for that. The following patches \item inside every itemize environment to add a semicolon after the first, and the \enditemize macro is changed to add a dot. You can no longer nest itemize environments with this simple approach. All in all I think this creates more problems than it solves...

\documentclass[]{article} \usepackage{etoolbox} \AtBeginEnvironment{itemize} {% \def\itemizepunctuation{\def\itemizepunctuation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctuation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } \begin{document} \begin{itemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{itemize} \end{document} 

I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to do this, maybe you should use a different environment for that. The following patches \item inside every itemize environment to add a semicolon after the first, and the \enditemize macro is changed to add a dot. You can no longer nest itemize environments with this simple approach. All in all I think this creates more problems than it solves...

\documentclass[]{article} \usepackage{etoolbox} \AtBeginEnvironment{itemize} {% \def\itemizepunctionation{\def\itemizepunctionation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}% \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctionation}{}{}% \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}% } \newenvironment{punctitemize} {% \itemize \def\itemizepunctionation{\def\itemizepunctionation{\ifhmode\unskip\fi;}}%   \pretocmd\item{\itemizepunctionation}{}{}%  \pretocmd\enditemize{\ifhmode\unskip\fi.}{}{}%  } {% \enditemize } \begin{document} \begin{itemize} \item One \item Two \item Three \end{itemize} \begin{punctitemize} \item One  \item Two \item Three \end{punctitemize} \end{document} 

EDIT: added the environment approach, nesting is still not supported.