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An Ode to the Bulleted List  - or

How to Trick Non-Readers into Reading

category: writing

I've been writing a lot recently. As a frequent wordsmith, I spend a lot of time cobbling words together in support of all kinds of stuff. I like to think that my various audiences read everything I write with bated breath, but, not being an idiot, I know it isn't so.
Most people are too lazy to read anything. I have spent hours sweating over all kinds of prose only to discover that the people for whom I wrote it haven't bothered to read it. That realization is frustration city, let me tell you. Why should I waste my time writing sentences that no one will read?


My solution to this vexing problem is the bulleted list. I am learning that many ideas I want to express can be stuffed into a bulleted list. I can't express the ideas as clearly in a list, the list is not good at showing relationships between ideas, but at least everything can get down on paper.
For some reason lists seem less frightening than paragraphs to most readers. Is this fear of paragraphs due to short attention spans? Are readers so unfamiliar with the confines of a sentence that they prefer not to come into contact with sentences?
Perhaps the demise of the sentence and the paragraph has something to do with the omnipresence of Power Point presentations. I don't think there are ever any sentences or paragraphs in Power Point presentations. These visual beauties are only about what you see, not about what you read. Yes, many ideas are best expressed or can be well expressed visually. However, there are ideas that don't lend themselves to visual presentation. Those ideas need words. They also need sentences and paragraphs. But, alas, I'll have to make do with the bulleted list.

She said on 11.08.05 @ 05:38 PM CST