Bullet lists and numbered lists make related information easy to read through, and because they are offset from the margins, lists stand out and catch the reader’s eye. Consider this example of a text written in a paragraph:
How To Fill Out Form I-765
Type or print legibly in black ink. If extra space is needed to complete any item, attach a continuation sheet, write your name and Alien Registration Number (A-Number) (if any), at the top of each sheet of paper, indicate the Part and item number to which your answer refers, and date and sign each sheet. Answer all questions fully and accurately. State that an item is not applicable with “N/A.” If the answer is none, write “None.”
—From Instructions for Application for Employment Authorization,
Department of Homeland Security
You can read through the information, but it could be better with the right formatting. Compare the paragraph version above to this revision, which uses numbered lists:
How To Fill Out Form I-765
- Type or print legibly in black ink.
- If extra space is needed to complete any item
- Attach a continuation sheet
- Write your name and Alien Registration Number (A-Number) (if any), at the top of each sheet of paper
- Indicate the Part and item number to which your answer refers,
- Date and sign each sheet.
- Answer all questions fully and accurately. State that an item is not applicable with “N/A.” If the answer is none, write “None.”
It should be immediately obvious that the version with the lists is easier to read. It provides a structure that works well with the F-shaped reading pattern.
I have two resources that you should read to learn more about using lists:
- Read all four pages of Grammar Girl’s Formatting Vertical Lists (or listen to the podcast). The information will tell you when to use a colon with a list, whether to capitalize list items. how to use other punctuation, and why list items should be parallel.
- Read Bulleted & Numbered Lists from the University of Minnesota’s Accessible U. This resource will tell you how to format your lists so that they work well with screenreaders and other assistive technologies.
3 Comments
I found it funny that the University of Minnesota’s Accessible U resource was formatted mainly in bulleted lists. The example in this post, the I-765, makes it quite clear why bulleted lists work better. A sense of progression is immediately conveyed by the list while a large paragraph doesn’t have that property. Lists also have parallelism, which makes them very easy to read.
Grammar Girl’s post offered really great advice for me. I had originally included commas and used “and” after the next to last bullet, but after learning that this was not considered correct, I definitely made sure to remove them. Using bullet points is a really good technique when listing expected elements in a paragraph without being forced to write an example of that paragraph.
Example 2 is almost identical to how I take notes for all of my classes. This organization style is possibly the most important skill I learned in high school and has only increased in value though this class. I also used this formatting style for my short proposal and my progress report to help organize the relevant information.