Readers of business documents need to retrieve information fast.

Rather than wade through paragraphs of narrative, a bulleted list takes the reader straight to the essential points you want to make. Here are two useful tips to remember when laying out information in a bulleted list:

Emphasize the beginning of the bullet point when the first few words capture the main idea. Preferably use bold type, rather than italics or underlining, as we have indicated in this bullet point.

Be consistent with punctuation. If one bullet item ends with a full stop (period), end all with a full stop. If bullets are phrases or fragments, no end punctuation is necessary. Avoid semi-colons.