When bullet points are a bad choice

When bullet points are a bad choice Why bullets wont make your case Bullets are designed to call out key points and help the reader scan large amounts of information. Or at least, thats the idea. You can start out with good intentions when you use them – youre probably trying to make life easier for your readers. Perhaps youre trying to create a document thats snappy, easy to understand, and that looks clean and modern. Unfortunately, in practice, bullet points can do the exact opposite. Endless bullets can be tedious to read. Theyve been around since the 80s, so they no longer automatically make a document look particularly modern. And when theyre used in the wrong context, theyre anything but easy to understand. One way that using bullets can badly misfire is when the author uses them to present an argument. A bullet list does not an argument make The theory: When you have a complex argument or analysis to explain, bullet points are a great idea. By breaking your argument into separate bullet points, you can make it easy to understand. Your reader just takes in each idea, one by one. The reality: This often doesnt work, largely because of what psychologists call the illusion of transparency. The illusion of transparency is the mistaken idea that whatever is going on in our own heads is obvious to other people. A classic demonstration of this is for one person to tap out a familiar tune (like Happy birthday or their national anthem) with their finger and then ask another person to guess the song. Try it for yourself. Think of a famous tune and tap it out to a friend or colleague. You will be amazed at how few people can correctly guess the song youre tapping out – experiments find that listeners guess correctly only around 3 per cent of the time. To you, it seems utterly obvious that youre tapping out a well-known tune. But the listener can only hear disconnected taps. Disconnected points Bullet points do exactly the same thing in writing. If you dont explicitly draw the connections between the ideas in your writing, you cant rely on your readers spotting the connections for themselves. The illusion of transparency reminds us that this is usually the case even when the connections between your bullet points are obvious to you. Of course, you can draw connections in ordinary running text. Our language is full of connective words that show the relationships between ideas. These include words like but, and, so, because, or, either and instead. But while you can (and probably naturally would) use words like these in regular structured prose to link your ideas, bullet points strip all of them away. And without them, you cant say – unequivocally – how ideas relate to each other. You cant talk about how or why a particular point is important – or not. And you cant expect your reader to fill in the blanks between your bullet points, as theyll often miss the links that seem obvious to you. Assemble the pieces You may have seen whole reports, proposals or emails that are little more than a list of bullets. The fact is, sometimes we might reach for bullet points as an alternative to fully planning out what it is were trying to say. It can be tempting, especially under time pressure, to try to skip over this part of the process and leave our reader to put the pieces together. But simply laying out a list of facts in bullet points does not by itself constitute a document, or an analysis, or a summary – its just a shortcut to nowhere. Documents like that never do your expertise and analysis justice, and theyre very unlikely to leave the reader informed, persuaded or happy. Instead, you need to make sure you do the work to assemble your argument first. If you start by being clear in your own mind what the connections are, you can then make these clear to your reader – and be sure theyll get your point. This post is taken from a larger lesson about the perils of misused bullet points (and better alternatives) in our online-learning programme, Emphasis 360. The programme is designed to transform your writing step by step in practical, bite-sized lessons. You can try it out for free here. Image credit: hin255 / Shutterstock

The Best Marketing Platform For Professional Marketers [Live Demo]

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Prepare a marketing plan for a product or service Essay

Prepare a marketing plan for a product or service - Essay Example The next section of the discussion illustrates the market segmentation targeting and positioning procedure of the organisation for the Delta brand. The segmentation and targeting process of the organisation has selected the high and medium population density locations of the urban market of China. The process has also targeted the busy professional, students and large family oriented populations within the age bracket of 12-30 years. The marketing plan has selected the cost leadership and market penetration strategy to ensure growth within the China market. The next section has detailed the marketing mix elements such as product, pricing, promotional process, placement, people management and customer service process. This section has recommended essential steps to create a strong and successful marketing plan. Finally, the study has illustrated the implementation procedure through Gantt chart. This Chart has detailed the eight month implantation plan of product marketing. It has also elaborated various tools to monitor and control the implementation process. The study is based on designing a marketing plan for a hypothetical soft drink manufacturing and retailing company in China. The discussion will evaluate the marketing plan for Delta carbonated soft drink in the China market. The product is planned to be manufactured and retail within China market by Semtex Plc, a medium sized fruit and soft drink manufacturing and retailing company. The marketing plan includes various essential actions such as situational analysis of the market and organisation, objectives setting, market segmentation and targeting, market strategy design, evaluation of marketing mix and resource allocation and budgeting. The discussion will further elaborate the implementation and monitoring plan for the proposed marketing strategies. The situation analysis of market will detail the macro and micro environment of the organisation. The macro environmental analysis will

The Criminal Justice Policy the Last 20 Years Essay

The Criminal Justice Policy the Last 20 Years - Essay Example In many circumstances, this system has failed to hold offenders accountable, reduce crime, help the victims or even operate with efficiency (Ismaill, 2011, 152-9). The system has many ‘black box’ dealings which contribute too little evidence on the procedures of implementing the policies. Moreover, it has led to problems associated with risks, for instance, increase in crime rates, the victimization on community policing, continuing injustices and the inefficiencies in regards to its operation with information or evidence with less credibility. The criminal justice system has many failure points due to limited training provided for criminal justice officials, practitioners, the various agencies in which it operates and to the researchers (Mears, 2010, 61-9). Evaluation research would help the policymakers in making decisions on whether to design, adopt, reject or improve a given criminal justice policy. Â  The criminal justice system policies are costly. The politicians are lacking appropriate research evaluation strategies and thus could spend billions of dollars in policies that may not be needed by the people or just policies which may not operate as expected (Ismaill, 2011, 152-9). A policy based on research evaluation is a solid start for accountability of the system and reliance on strategies based on evidence (Mears, 2010, 61-9). This also forms a firm foundation for cost-effectiveness in the administration of justice, enables the offenders to be helpful members in the society, enhances the prevalence of justice, and helps in assisting the victims of injustice and the communities impacted on by criminal acts. The public and the policymakers always demand a criminal justice system which is credible, accountable and cost-effective. Â  The number of offenders has significantly risen over the last twenty years (Mears, 2010, 61-9).

My Great Expectations :: Personal Narrative Writing

My Great Expectations Everything that I have experienced so far in Flagstaff has been great. In the next four years there are many new thing that I will experience here that I never have by living in phoenix. Also I would like to leave here with a lot more knowledge about different things like business and the community of this city. In the outstanding city of Flagstaff I came with a lot of expectation, will experience many knew things in my college years, and also have two main goals before I leave this city. In Flagstaff I have and will experience a lot of new things that did not experience from living in Phoenix. The first thing is the small town surroundings, this is a lot different from living in phoenix most of my life. So far it seems that everyone around here is very friendly and everyone is a lot more laid back. Also the surroundings are a lot different from the desert of phoenix. No longer are there saguaro cactuses and dirt everywhere, now there are pine trees and green grass. The abundance of green makes flagstaff a lot prettier then the desert. I have never lived in an area where it snows in the winter, the Flagstaff winters will also be a new experience for me. These are the great new experiences I will have by living in Flagstaff for the next 4 years. The expectations that I have coming to Flagstaff is having a great education at Northern Arizona University, meet a lot of new people in my four years here, and the new cooler climate here. I expect this university to teach me the business marketing ways so when I get out of college if I work hard I can be a successful business man. I chose to come to Flagstaff for school because of the smaller campus and school size. At any huge university you are just another face in the crowd but here the class sizes are smaller and you can walk to any class on campus. Also by spending the next four years in flagstaff I will meet a lot of new people. I plan on joining a fraternity this semester I will definitely meet a lot of new people by that and also have a lot of new experiences.

Alcohol and Advertising Essay

Throughout the history of television, viewers have raised many questions about alcohol advertising. Does advertising influence alcohol consumption? Does it has an impact on alcohol abuse or alcohol related disease and death? How is advertising affecting us? The goal of this essay is to collect evidence, both theoretical and empirical, that would address the question of whether advertising affects in any measurable manner alcohol consumption and mortality from alcoholism and alcohol related disease. The alcohol and advertising industries argue that as alcoholic drink is a legal product it should be legally possible for it to be advertised, and that bans on alcohol advertising would have adverse effects on the alcohol market and on the media. They also argue that bans are not justified as advertising is concerned with promoting sales of individual brands and there is no evidence of a causal link between advertising and the overall level of alcohol consumption or the amount of alcohol related harm. The main arguments are that as well as promoting brands, advertising is also concerned with recruiting new drinkers and increasing sales among existing, and especially heavy consumers. (Fisher 22-24) Henry Saffer, a New York economist who focuses in alcohol research, assures that alcohol advertising is increasing traffic accidents and alcohol consumption. He declares, ?  §Until now, most of the studies done on the subject conclude that alcohol advertising doesn?  ¦t affect drinking behavior. The alcohol industry uses these studies to bolster its argument that advertising only induces people to switch brands. These studies keep coming and find nothing because they set themselves up to find nothing. (Abramson 1) Saffer research? K? K Much of the debate concerns the possible effects on children and young people. The Advertising Codes prohibit the specific targeting of minors, but the ubiquity of alcohol advertising ensures that it can hardly be missed by them. Indeed, the evidence is that even young children are aware of alcohol advertisements and tend to remember them. (Mackiln 251-252) ?  §The American Academy of Pediatrics shows a recent study of the impact of television on children and teenagers: ? XAmerican children view over 23 hours of television per week. ?XTeenagers view an average of 21 to 22 hours of television per week. ?XBy the time today’s children reach age 70, they will have spent to 10 years of their lives watching television. ? §The American Academy of Pediatrics states that television advertising influence education and conduct of children and adolescents. They believe that ?  §time spent watching TV could be better spent on constructive activities. Some other statistics that are shown are: ? XAmerican children have viewed an estimated 360,000 advertisements on television before graduating from high school. ?XAmerica children view nearly 2,000 beer and wine commercials on television. Beer, wine and liquor companies spend over $2 billion per year on advertising and promotion. (1) Perhaps the most commonly held assumption by researchers in the field is that advertising works. There is a strong belief that advertising affects consumption of alcoholic beverages and is related to the adverse consequences of excessive use. Hilary Abramson, describes in her article ?  §Alcohol Ads Increase Drinking the study ?  §The Alcohol Epidemiology program at the University of Minnesota has list some restrictions that can be apply in a special event, business or organization. The restrictions are: noooooooo Works Cited Abramson, Hilary. ? §Alcohol Ads Increase Drinking. August 1997. November 23, 2002 Abramson, Hilary. ? §Warning: TV Alcohol Ad Warning Could Work. August 1995. November 23, 2002 ?  §The American Academy of Pediatrics. November 23, 2002 Fisher, Joseph C. ? §Exposure to Alcohol Images in Mass Media. Advertising, Alcohol Consumption, and Abuse: A Worldwide Survey. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993. 28-55. Hanson, David J. ? §Alcohol Advertising. 1997-2002. November 23, 2002 Macklin, Carlson Les. , ed. ? §Adolescents?  ¦ Attention to Beer and Cigarette Print Ads and Associated product Warnings. Advertising to Children: Concepts and Controversies. California: SAGE Publications, 1999. 251-275.

Vector Definition in Science

The term vector has different definitions in science, primarily depending whether the topic is math/physical science or medicine/biology. Vector Definition in Math and Physics In physical science and engineering, a vector is a geometric object which has both magnitude or length and direction. A vector is commonly represented by a line segment in a specific direction, indicated by an arrow. Vectors are typically used to describe physical quantities which have a directional quality in addition to a quantity that could be described by a single number with a unit. Also Known As: Euclidean vector, spatial vector, geometric vector, mathematical vector Examples: Velocity and force are vector quantities. In contrast, speed and distance are scalar quantities, which have magnitude but not direction. Vector Definition in Biology and Medicine In the biological sciences, the term vector refers to an organism that transmits a disease, parasite, or genetic information from one species to another. Examples: Mosquitoes are a vector of malaria. A virus may be used as a vector to insert genes into a bacterial cell.