Shorter lists are more persuasive

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry

My last post was about formatting tables to make your message clearer to your reader. This tip is also about clarity but this time it relates to content, and how to ensure it has the maximum impact.

I am sure you often find yourself needing to write a list within a document. It could be a list of findings from an audit, lists of the pros and cons of a proposed course of action, or something similar.

For these kinds of lists it makes sense to start with the most important item (important in the context of the document) and then have the others in descending order of importance. The problem with this is the ones at the bottom of the list may well be relatively trivial and their very inclusion undermines the rest of the list. The last item a reader reads has an impact on how they feel about the list as a whole.

Don’t believe me? Try this. Find a medicine in your cabinet and look at the document that explains all the side effects. Pharmaceutical companies have to include all the side effects and the ones at the end of the list will be trivial. If you read them all the way to the end you will likely find the last side effect is something like indigestion you are likely to think: “it’s not too bad if it just causes indigestion,” even though the most significant side effect could be very much more serious like blood clots.

The same thing can happen to your audit report or project update. As an auditor, for example, if you want management to focus on three major issues then just list those. Leave the small stuff off the list so that when the manager reads the list they have to confront three very important issues. By all means, if there are ten major issues to be addressed then include all ten — but don’t weaken your message by including another ten minor issues.

If you really, really feel that your audit report has to be a complete record of every finding and weakness, put all the minor findings and recommendations in an appendix or a chapter at the end of the report where they are less likely to undermine the big stuff. You might even put them in two different reports. The major items go in one report to the board or audit committee and the minor items go in a report to the relevant manager.

This tip about lists does not just apply to audit reports. If you are writing a business case for a project, list the most important advantages and disadvantages (which could be more than three). Including very minor advantages could undermine the business case as the reader thinks the project may not be a good idea if it needs such minor items to justify it.

If you want more tips like this, or any other help with your writing projects, I offer one-to-one coaching on all aspects of writing for public sector accountants. Find out more here.