ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Lead with the point and follow it with a bulleted list

A list of numerical facts, complicated details, or recommendations can be difficult for readers to lift off the page from a block of text. Breaking that block into bulleted items clarifies those elements and works well for setting up a line of argument.

Why do this?

• To articulate three, four, or more facts
• To relieve a dense block of text or a long series
• To set each element apart, making it easier to remember
• To highlight a list of recommendations or important ideas

The ratio of global trade to GDP has been rising over the past decade, but it has been falling for 44 developing countries, with more than a billion people. The least developed countries, with 10% of the world's people, have only 0.3% of world trade—half their share of two decades ago. The list goes on:

• More than half of all developing countries have been bypassed by foreign direct investment, two-thirds of which has gone to only eight developing countries.
• Real commodity prices in the 1990s were 45% lower than those in the 1980s—and 10% lower than the lowest level during the Great Depression, reached in 1932.
• The terms of trade for the least developed countries have declined a cumulative 50% over the past 25 years.
• Average tariffs on industry country imports from the least developed countries are 30% higher than the global average.
• Developing countries lose about $60 billion a year from agricultural subsidies and barriers to textile exports in industrial nations.

If financial systems are to reach low-income female entrepreneurs and producers, delivery systems need to respond to the common characteristics of low-income women and their businesses:

• Women have less experience in dealing with formal financial institutions.
• Women tend to have smaller enterprises and fewer assets.
• Women are less likely to own land or other assets and face legal barriers to borrowing in many countries.
• Illiteracy rates are higher among women.
• Low-income women tend to concentrate on different economic activities than low-income men.

The trick to writing this kind of paragraph is knowing when not to do it. Some reports have bullets everywhere. Used too frequently, they lose their effectiveness and become an excuse for not writing complete paragraphs. That said, there are good reasons for using them: to organize many numerical facts or to emphasize important recommendations.

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