List Structure Checker

Lists work because they externalise structure the reader would otherwise have to infer. A paragraph containing five criteria requires holding five things in mind while parsing the connective grammar between them; the same five as bullets require none of that. The gain is real but conditional — it depends on the items genuinely being parallel, which is the part that most often goes wrong.

Ordered and unordered lists are not interchangeable. Numbers imply sequence and dependency: step three follows step two and cannot be done first. Bullets imply that order is irrelevant. Using a numbered list for a set of unranked options tells readers there is a progression that does not exist, and using bullets for a procedure hides the fact that order matters. Screen readers announce list type and item count, so the distinction carries semantically as well as visually.

The failure mode is over-listing. Prose that has been fully converted to bullets loses the connective tissue that explains how the points relate, leaving a set of assertions with no argument between them — which is why heavily bulleted documents often feel thin despite covering everything. Lists are for genuinely enumerable content: steps, criteria, options, specifications. Reasoning belongs in sentences. Keeping items grammatically parallel and roughly the same length is what makes the ones you do use scannable.