6 Methods of Presentation

Bullet Lists

Lists help readers find information quickly and easily because readers can scan lists more quickly than they can scan paragraphs. Readers can also extract information more easily from lists than paragraphs.

— Saul Carliner

Bullet lists, by their layout, visually tell the reader that the information that follows is simply a list of related items and not explanatory text. The reader can then decide to either read the list or skip over it.

Use bullet lists for three or more items. Follow these simple rules:

Introduce each list with a sentence or phrase.
For lists of words or phrases, do not punctuate. End complete sentences with a period. If any item on a list is punctuated, punctuate every item.
Capitalize the first word of a list item only if the item is a complete sentence.
Single space simple word lists or phrase lists. Double space lists of sentences.
Do not use numbers or letters unless the sequence of the items is important (bullets imply random order).
Structure all items within a list similarly (for example, if one item begins with a verb, they all should).