Question: I'm trying to create an effect where `h#` elements are bracketed by bullet characters. If the the heading breaks across multiple lines, the bullets should be to the left and right of the text block, and vertically centred.

Take this example HTML5 and CSS3:

```
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Title</title>
</head>

<body>
    <div class="content-container">
        <h1>Short title</h1>
        <h1>Really long title that will hopefully span multiple lines to demonstrate the problem I'm trying to solve here</h1>
    </div>
</body>

</html>

h1 {
    font-weight: bold;
    text-align: center;
}

h1:before {
    content: '— ';
}

h1:after {
    content: ' —';
}
​

```

This renders the bullets, but when there are line breaks the bullets end up wrapping with the text itself.

How can I change the CSS so that the bullets are placed to the left or right of the whole text block, and vertically centered against it? This [jsFiddle](http://jsfiddle.net/zvufe/) depicts the effect better than I can describe it. Note that there are containers that exist above the header element (they just aren't exclusive containers for it) which could also be used.

I don't want to change the HTML because that's just too fragile a solution: it requires changes in the CMS templates, the content itself, and an edict to all future content authors — which will be superfluous if the theming ever changes again.

Answer: 
You will not get it. Linq-to-entities will not make transformation to list of strings. Your best chance is executing normal queries and do conversion and transformation your application. 

Argument that you don't know which columns user selects just means you need more dynamic solution - Linq-to-entities is not a good tool for you (except if you try to use Dynamic Linq or build expression trees manually). Use ESQL or SQL directly.
When selecting data from many tables, use [anonymous types](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397696.aspx) to encapsulate the properties(fields) you want to select from these tables into a new entity, something like:

```
var query = _db.Categories.Join(
_db.Products,
c => c.CategoryId,
p => p.CategoryId,
(category, product) =>
   new
   {
       ProductName = product.Name,
       CategoryName = category.Name,
       ExpiryDate = product.ExpiryDate
   });

```