from Hacker News

How I learned to stop worrying and structure all writing as a list

by Naac on 3/18/22, 6:31 PM with 131 comments

by yodon on 3/18/22, 7:49 PM
If you're leaning towards stripping all your writing down to list form, you may want to read Tufte's analysis on the role PowerPoint (aka writing everything in the form of bulleted lists) played in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster [0]. I used to write exclusively in bulleted list/outline format until spending time with Tufte's analysis. Now I get that the connective tissue of the document is vitally important to the reader even if it's not important to the writer. If you don't put in the connective tissue, your reader has to do it for you and they'll probably do it incorrectly (leading to, for example, the failure to prevent the Challenger disaster).
[0]https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/...
by wrs on 3/18/22, 7:04 PM
Maybe I’m dating myself, but I was taught to start writing by coming up with an outline, which helps you organize your ideas into a coherent sequence. A list article basically makes its outline visible. The outline is also easily turned into an introduction that can address the non-list structure problem at the end of this article.
by verve_rat on 3/18/22, 9:56 PM
This seems like an argument for using headings. The "list" part seems irrelevant.
by rahimiali on 3/19/22, 3:30 AM
The top comments aren’t doing the article justice. The article is really about the kinds of subjects that can be covered in depth as small sections that do not have dependencies between them. It explains the value of topics that can be presented this way, then explains these articles need to publicize this fact by claiming to be lists. Seriously well argued position and I recommend reading the whole thing.
Notability the article is not about hierarchical bulleted lists.

by swah on 3/19/22, 11:43 AM

    - Lists are appealing
    - Lists promise value quickly
    - Lists promise different types of value
    - Lists promise limited complexity
    - Lists promise many entrance points
    - A list is a contract between the writer and reader
    - A list promises “list-tractability”
    - How to stop worrying

Also:

    - I only had to read those headings and check the images to read this article in under a minute. 
    - I'll never know if something was lost. 
    - Youtube also has lists nowadays. 
    - I'm a skimmer and I feel bad.
    - I opened a book yesterday and it was very relaxing.

by exolymph on 3/18/22, 8:45 PM
Myself, I tend toward flowery prose with copious clauses and parentheticals. But listing — or building out a list into an essay — is an incredibly effective communication tactic. I would rather have people write lists than write nothing, and for most writers, I would also rather read their boiled-down lists than their hilariously padded nonfiction books.
by bryanrasmussen on 3/19/22, 12:40 AM
hmm, which of these two am I drawn to:
>“Theory and practice of effective sleep”
>“Seven insights about sleep”
hmm, the first one sounds like an in-depth exhaustive text on the subject that if I have the time to read it I will definitely learn something from.
The second sounds like SEO listicle crap at least 5 of which insights will be really obvious things that only an idiot would need explained to them, 1 of which will sound deep and insightful but if I read the first text will turn out to have been misinterpreted and actually mean almost the obvious of what is supposed, and 1 of which might be slightly helpful.
I think I might want to read the first, but only if I really want to learn something about sleep, and I might read the second one for some reason at some point and immediately think why do I waste my time with this stuff.
by andreshb on 3/18/22, 7:49 PM
Lists make writing easier
1. I write ideas without worrying about transitions
2. I can quickly review if I’m missing any important point
3. Forces me to simplify what I try to communicate with less words and more meaning
by jerf on 3/18/22, 7:49 PM
I absolutely agree that any writing much past one normal monitor's worth of writing could use more structure than just a pile of paragraphs. (Though a pile of paragraphs is still much better than a pile of sentences!)
But it is a strange leap from "Too much writing without more structure is hard to read" to "You should use lists specifically". It's perfectly valid to use, you know, headers. Subheaders. Actual lists, bulleted and ordered. Horizontal rules if you're feeling feisty and/or old school. Essayist does try to give motivations but I feel like there was significant cheating by comparing lists to unstructured essays. Lists vs. structured essays are a much more give & take situation, where lists only triumph in certain limited ways.
by zwieback on 3/18/22, 7:16 PM
Agree up to a point. When I see "37 x about y" I keep scrolling. It has to be a reasonable number of items.
I love lists for emails - whenever I write an email that mentions more than one point I put everything in numbered paragraphs. Sometimes I also do 1) 2) 3) for information and a) b) c) for questions that refer back to the numbered list. Makes it a lot easier for followups to stay on track.
by submeta on 3/19/22, 11:32 AM
I was an avid user of outliner apps myself (Netmanage's ECCO Pro some twenty years ago, later OmniOutliner on my Mac, and recently Emacs/Org or Roam Research), until I realized that trying to distill my ideas down to the core structure, the narrative of what I am trying to tell get's lost. This is something that Jeff Bezos laments about PowerPoint [1]:
/quote/
Anytime an Amazon worker has an idea to discuss, they’re asked to structure their pitch in the form of a 4-6 page memo, which the company calls a “narrative.”
Well structured, narrative text is what we’re after rather than just text. If someone builds a list of bullet points in word, that would be just as bad as powerpoint.
The reason writing a 4 page memo is harder than “writing” a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what, and how things are related.
Powerpoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the innerconnectedness of ideas.
/unquote/
I value outliners a lot, but when I started writing down my ideas in full sentences, I was forced to create arguments more clearly and explicitly, and that helps me get clearer about my problem domain.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jeff-bezos-email-against-...
by leokennis on 3/19/22, 10:47 AM
I at least make sure all my work mails are numbered lists:
1. Easy for replies to refer to a certain portion of my mail (just mention the number)
2. Lists result in shorter emails with less fluff - always an advantage for work related communication
3. Especially for people with less writing skills, lists make it clearer what the priorities are. “Item 4” is of more importance than “Item 2b”. If you’re only using words, you need mastery of language to convey that.
by underwater on 3/18/22, 10:28 PM
Lists are great, but shouldn't be used for everything.
This article is a perfect example. These items are all supporting a thesis that the visual nature of lists provides clear value to the reader. The author asserts lists "allow readers to quickly and easily get what they want". But the text doesn't take the time to properly establish why that is the most important property of writing.
Because the author hasn't properly sold the core idea, the subsequent list items just come across as a shotgun approach. It seems as though the author thinks that it they throw out enough ideas one of them will stick, or that the reader will assume that the sheer volume of points means the idea is solid.
by mwattsun on 3/19/22, 2:13 AM
A starting point for exploring Wikipedia is "List of lists of lists"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists
by atweiden on 3/19/22, 6:58 AM
Check out vim-journal [1] if you really want to take this to the next level.
The plugin’s kaleidoscopic colour functionality visually incentivizes writing in list format constantly. The colours are enjoyable to look at, and you get more of them on your screen each time you indent a list item.
```
    which
    - makes you organize your thoughts differently
      - because
        - the more colour, the better
      - e.g.
        - you’ll want to write like this
```
[1]: https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal
by justinlloyd on 3/18/22, 10:19 PM
I don't like lists.
Written lists.
Lists written out to try and impart knowledge and information to the reader.
I do like being able to dip in to things, in an exploratory, unconnected fashion, but lists, especially in modern SEO writing for the web, have turned in to some bastardized version of useful information.
My usual train of thought is "a list that isn't a list", e.g. https://justinlloyd.li/blog/3d-printer-purchase/ for a 3D printer purchase or my three year long train of thought on prime number research at https://justinlloyd.li/blog/prime-numbers/.
On a side note, when I am writing a lengthy article, I usually assemble a list of bullet points first, the outline, and then convert the bullet points into prose, and then re-order the prose, then edit the prose so that it flows.
But I think lists are a terrible, terrible travesty of the modern web, because they are so abused.
And bullet pointed lists in a presentation, I consider those kinds of things to be used by people who don't understand the subject, to teach people even less knowledgable about the subject, everything that they know. Which ain't much.
by hintymad on 3/18/22, 8:48 PM
> It’s because there ain’t no way to re-write mathematical analysis as a “list”. When you do write a list, you are promising that you’ve figured out a way to cover the subject in that way without losing essential detail.
I'm not sure this works out for a math textbook, or any book at all. We build our understanding and knowledge by layering up abstractions, and the abstractions form a graph. A linear list to cover all the preqreq will be tedious and repetitive, to say the least.
by tempestn on 3/18/22, 9:42 PM
Was going to comment on the irony of this not being a list, then got to the excellent final line.
by MarkLowenstein on 3/18/22, 10:57 PM
I believe the major advantage of lists is that they make it easy to block out all the chaff from the rest of the prose, allowing you to comfortably concentrate on the current item. That's the same advantage provided by well-chosen taxonomies. Also I think the best UIs are defined by how well they help you identify the areas which you can ignore. I wish this were an explicit priority for designers.
by jzer0cool on 3/18/22, 8:26 PM
This is because we are living in a system built upon filtering out noise. Also, to filter out from sensory overflow.
by waprin on 3/18/22, 8:24 PM
The love of lists seems to explain the explosion of Twitter threads. Some of them are long form messages spliced up but most of them are some form of lists.
I’m personally still partial to a good old blog posts with paragraphs, both for writing and reading, but like the author I can’t help but notice that readers love lists.
by qualudeheart on 3/19/22, 2:09 PM
The universe is implemented as a many dimensional linked list on a cheap Chromebook in base reality.
by SantalBlush on 3/18/22, 9:25 PM
The all-knowing Maddox wrote about the list format 10 years ago, in what is (imo) one of his best articles. [1]
[1] http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks
by voidfunc on 3/19/22, 5:02 AM
I was a Philosophy major, one of my fave philosophers is Aristotle primarily because most of his arguments are just a list propositions and then a conclusion. Its dressed up a little but compared to folks after him it’s relatively straightforward.
by iandanforth on 3/18/22, 9:06 PM
I find that slack has moved my writing towards lists more and more. Specifically anything up for a group discussion that can be broken down into a series of points I do, and I use a different "line" to do so. This way each statement can spawn a thread for further discussion. I don't always use numbered lists or even bulleted lists, but I write for a series of items rather than a block of interwoven information.
This is similar to some academic writing I've done where the author of a section writes each sentence on a separate line so that it can be commented on more easily before all the sentences are rejoined into paragraph form.
by chociej on 3/19/22, 1:10 AM
> Are you drawn to the second? I am.
I mean this with all sincerity, but dear god, no, I certainly am not. My conditioning tells me that the second option (the listicle) is probably going to be worthless and filled with terrible advertising.
by DFHippie on 3/19/22, 11:53 AM
I'm going to pull out the last paragraph, because I feel the comments up to this point haven't given it enough love:
> So, say you’ve written something that feels ranty and disorganized. It’s often useful to retrospectively turn it into a list. If this takes a lot of reorganization, that’s good—it means you’re untangling your ideas. And you don’t need to write a “pure” list—use other sections if you need them. If you still feel lame after all this, just give the piece a non-list title and leave the list items unnumbered. No one will even notice what you’ve done.
by jancsika on 3/19/22, 12:18 AM
> It’s crazy how much more attractive the list is, even when there’s zero content. Why?
* it's funny-- the list example appeals to me for content like HN posts.
* for something like a prose analysis of the first 33 measures of the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 101, the non-list version is more appealing. In fact, my prejudice is that the list version will be both a gloss and factually inaccurate.
* if I were a prankster I'd name this phenomenon after a physicist friend and subtly spread it as a low-effort shorthand for critiquing the quality of HN posts.
Edit: almost forgot-- my post should be formatted as a list
by FpUser on 3/18/22, 8:43 PM
Goal for the next century: discover paragraphs, levels and table of content.
by smackeyacky on 3/18/22, 9:19 PM
In Microsoft Word, you can use "View->Outline".
This displays something cut-down into the structure of the document, so the headings can be shrunk with their included text. I found it in the past to be a really useful way to build a document before it's formatted. i.e. put in all the headings you think you will need first, then gradually fill out the text under each heading. Once the document starts to flesh out, you will find bits that naturally fit together, so you can restructure and have something cohesive.
After that, format away in the normal mode.
by krsdcbl on 3/19/22, 11:28 AM
I think one very crucial point is missing from the article that explains a lot of the appeal of lists:
lists give me an idea, or at least the illusion of knowing content length beforehand or very early on.
When i see the first list item and the title says "seven of those", i can gauge my time investment in consuming that content.
It's important that this is abstract, as "500 words" has little intuitive meaning but "4 pieces of roughly this text block" is a very natural way of evaluating my time commitment, subconsciously.
by kayodelycaon on 3/18/22, 7:47 PM
I don't think this article makes a good argument for this style because it reads like someone's powerpoint slides. It doesn't flow well visually and there isn't enough text for any kind of nuance.
For a better example of this type of writing, I recommend looking at how Rails Guides are written: https://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.htm...
by Torwald on 3/18/22, 8:00 PM
I think this warrants a re-link:
http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html
by Ldorigo on 3/19/22, 8:13 AM
Related to his point on how mathematics can't fit into a list, but rather needs a graph representation - does anyone know if there are efforts to map out a large network of mathematics as a graph of dependencies? (Ideally as an acyclic directed graph so there's no instances of subjects being their own prerequisites but maybe that's illusory)
by joeman1000 on 3/18/22, 8:10 PM
Lists and outlines are great! Org-mode is built on this idea. It is an outliner at its core. It allows you to treat a whole document like a list. As a result I tend to add a skeleton to my documents before doing the bulk of the writing. If anyone is interested by what’s in this article, please check out org-mode!
by acenes on 3/21/22, 1:36 AM
Do we no longer have the attention span to just read text? Do we need 'multiple entry points'? Do we have to convince the reader that each chunk of text will provide 'value' separate from others? How sad.
by LAC-Tech on 3/18/22, 8:52 PM
I don't think I have a problem with lists, just with the kinds of websites that use lists.
Back in the day it was common for each item on the list to be its own page. These days, I'm guaranteed to have a popup to subscribe to a mailing list.
by syngrog66 on 3/19/22, 6:28 AM
OA is a case of "everything old becomes new again, to younger generations"
things we knew decades ago: bullet points nice; section & section headers nice; summaries nice
by anamax on 3/18/22, 11:27 PM
I always use numbered lists when sending questions to customer support because otherwise they respond with some irrelevant quote from the documentation.
by mbeex on 3/19/22, 10:30 AM
An example of digital dementia in my opinion. Just test which list entries you still remember after two hours (or in many cases, after 10 minutes)
by morninglight on 3/18/22, 8:58 PM
Perhaps the best example is a free instructional document developed by the US government at an enormous cost over nearly 90 years. Adopting this writing style allows even the most complex subjects to be mastered by any high school graduate. The downloadable free style guide for conveying technical information in a clear and concise manner can be found here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf
by solarkraft on 3/18/22, 9:28 PM
I structure most of my writing and (especially) notes as deeply nested, tree-formed lists. It works fabulously for keeping an overview.
by xg15 on 3/20/22, 7:56 PM
- I was sort of wondering if this article would be written as a list.
- I was not disappointed.
- The insight is nevertheless good.
by totetsu on 3/19/22, 7:06 AM
Things I learned how to do:
- Stop worrying
- Structure ALL writing as list.
by smiley1437 on 3/18/22, 7:29 PM
Is it just me or does the list look more maintainable than the hypothetical essay? lol
by gw67 on 3/23/22, 11:19 AM
I recommend "The pyramid principle" book.
by kpierce on 3/18/22, 8:27 PM
I feel like this article was written just for the last paragraph payoff.
by jasfi on 3/19/22, 7:36 AM
Lists help writers get to the point.