Bullets Make the Point

I love bullet points. When executed well, a group of bullet points can:

• bring clarity to a complex idea
• catch the eye of skimmers
• provide simplified information
• break up dense paragraphs

When done incorrectly, bullet points can confuse your audience and bog down an article. So how do you know if you’re doing it right?

It Looks Pretty

Your bullet points should be pleasing to the eye. Especially for web writing, long dense paragraphs make the average online user’s eyes glaze over. Bullet points should add white space to the page.

It’s Simple

Bullet points should make things easy on the reader. Remember it’s an article, not an outline, so bullet points with sub-bullet points is not a good idea. Nix the full paragraphs as well. Often, bullet points are not full sentences, but ideas, headlines or titles.

It’s Consistent

Parallel form is important to effectively use bullet points. Parallel form just means each bullet point starts with the same part of speech, and is the same approximate length and format.

It Has Impact

Imagine scrolling through a web article or scanning a magazine article. What pops out?  The bullet points. They are neat, simple and used sparingly. Bullet points can be what brings the skimmer, scanner and glancer into the article.

So FWJ – time to write! Create bullet points for an article on invisible cars. Take it wherever you want to go!

photo courtesy of: stock.xchng.hu