"Fuzzy" lists

Inline lists are often softened and phrased so they are not quite so 'listy'.

Compare these two lists:

Items in my hard drive bag: red hard drive; black hard drive; grey hard drive; lightning cable; mega dongle thingy; micro USB cable; 2 regular USB cables.

Writelike

My hard drive bag contains hard drives (one black, one red, and one grey) and a variety of cables and adapters (including a lightning cable, micro USB cable, and multi-purpose adapter dongle).

Writelike

They are both lists, but the second sounds more 'human', right? Less like data, more like part of a conversation.

Even though it doesn't look on first glance like a 'list', it's still a list.

We often list items in this way, whether in conversation or description in prose.

Here's your list from the previous page. Try making it sound more natural, as if you were telling someone in person about these items.

Have you noticed how this exercise has become very close to 'normal' writing?

That's something interesting about lists: they're everywhere, even if they're not totally obvious.

We've seen vertical (bulleted) lists and horizontal (inline) lists.

What happens if we go in both directions at the same time?

Lists & hierarchies