The Dos and Don’ts of Bulleted Lists

Do use lists to draw attention. When readers skim through a text, bulleted lists capture their interest and their attention.

Don’t overuse lists. The effect will be the opposite: readers will start to skip past them.

Do make certain the items are in parallel form.

Don’t mix capitalization and punctuation. If one list item starts with an uppercase letter, start all list items with an uppercase letter.

Do use a list to provide a summary (see CNN’s news articles for great examples) or repeat key points.

Don’t make the list longer than it needs to be. Brevity, as always, is important.

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