Use Bulleted Lists for Content Writing
As readers, we’re used to sentences on paper with long lists of nouns, verbs qand phrases. On the monitor such sentences become harder to read and harder to respond to. This can be a problem in an interactive medium such as the Web.
Bullets, then, have several functions for Web Writers :
- They focus attention on important points.
- They organize the content, often serving as a preview or summary of material.
- They improve the design of your page.
The media have given us some of their own occupational slang, like “sound bite”, but trendy clichés usually come from the occupations and professions most studied by the chattering classes :
Business
Use for Bottom line, deep pockets, downsizing.
Military
Use for Bite the bullet, in the trenches, breakthrough, flak,
Engineering
Use for Parameters, State of the Art, Leading Edge, Reinventing the Wheel.
Athletics
Use for Team Players, Ballpark figures, Level playing fields, track records.
Politics
Use for Charisma, spin doctors, bandwagons, momentum,
Self help Movement
Use for Self Actualizing holistic, meaning full, one day at a time, wellness.
Bulleted lists offer a couple of other advantages
- Keep bulleted lists parallel in form. That is, make every item a sentence ending in a period, or make every item a similar kind of phrase, without end punctuation,
- Bulleted lists should be short, six or seven bullets are probably the maximum,
- Bulleted lists may introduce a longer discussion of the topics mentioned, or may provide links to other sites dealing with the topics.
- Think about the length of the items in a bulleted lists,
And a Small Point
You have a huge number of bullet types to choose form black circles, boxes, check marks, ad so on. Keep your bullets simple and discreet.
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