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Does a complete sentence have to come before a colon?

In formal academic writing, yes. The words before a colon should be able to stand alone. This is why writing the three factors were: cost, time and access is an error, because the three factors were is not a sentence. Either drop the colon or complete the clause first.

This comes up on Colons and Semicolons, where it is answered in the context of the work itself.

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