One question that both my teams have had in common so far is ‘do we use bullet points or paragraphs in our reports?’.
I am perhaps not the best person to ask – I will opt for bullet points every time. Whenever there is a list of points to be made, I immediately think bullets. But is this lazy (because one is not forming full sentences)? If it is, I don’t mean to be lazy. My justification for using them is to aid with scannability – if there is a point per bullet, the reader can easily see the point. And when I hear ‘report’, I think in terms of highlighting important information (especially if a manager is reading it).
So when is it inappropriate to use bullet points in a report? Are they solely for short lists?
I don't think it's lazy, but personally I'd never make a paragraph/section consist *entirely* of bullets. It's just not easy on my eye. I think bulleted lists should always be introduced with at least one introductory sentence.
ReplyDeleteIf this was a poll amongst the class then I would also be ticking the bullets box. When designing my own website I looked at Neilsen's alertbox website -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html
- here he mentions the effectiveness of bullet points for scannability.
It is perhaps what you are used to. In academia, the teachers seem to prefer paragraphs for long lists and bullet points for short lists. That's what I'm picking up on - I could be wrong and it could depend on the teacher.
ReplyDeleteI would certainly use bullet points in a website. Making it easier for the reader to scan the page for information is definitely an advantage. While we're on the topic, do you know if you should state the purposes of the website immediately to the reader (in the first paragraph) or should you draw them in and then tell them the purposes. I would opt for the former. My team members were not so sure. What about yourselves?