I am setting forth ten commandments for writers in the public sector, based on my dissertation and on standards for clear writing. The commandments will each appear as a Word of the Week.<\/p>\n
Ninth commandment:<\/p>\n
Avoid\u00a0<\/strong>lists.<\/strong><\/p>\n In government documents,\u00a0using a list is\u00a0a popular rhetorical\u00a0device: \u201dWe offer services for children, youngsters, adults and seniors.\u201d\u00a0In other words, something for everyone.\u00a0By listing\u00a0items this way, a writer creates an impression of full coverage, but at the same time he makes the text long and dull.<\/p>\n A mania for\u00a0<\/strong>coverage is one reason for the prevalence of lists. In addition, this technique is a fast way to compose a text, especially if you approve of sentence fragments: “Permits, applications, appeals. Reviews, reports. All here for you.” And guidelines for\u00a0<\/strong>online writing often recommend using lists and similar\u00a0<\/strong>visual highlights.<\/p>\n Justification for listing may stem from a Jakob Nielsen recommendation. He maintains that one way to support the scanning of text is to include lists. However, his own examples usually consist of only a few items, and each item tends to have only a few words. It’s true that short lists with two or three words per item are easy to skim,<\/strong>\u00a0but longer lists do not help readers in the same way. This guideline therefore needs some context: a list can help a reader skim if it contains 3 to 5 items, and the items are 3 to 5 words long. Try not to use\u00a0<\/strong>too many lists in the same text, a practice that Nielsen also advises against.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am setting forth ten commandments for writers in the public sector, based on my dissertation and on standards for clear writing. The commandments will each appear as a Word of the Week. Ninth commandment: Avoid\u00a0lists. In government documents,\u00a0using a list is\u00a0a popular rhetorical\u00a0device: \u201dWe offer services for children, youngsters, adults and seniors.\u201d\u00a0In other words, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3663,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions\/3663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}