List articles

What a list article is

A list article is a piece organised as a numbered or bulleted set, where each item is the same kind of thing as every other item, and where the order either matters or is honestly arbitrary and says so. "The seven documents you need before a permit application" is a list article. So is "Five signs a roof needs replacing rather than repairing." Each item is a document. Each item is a sign. They are parallel.

It is not an article with numbers pasted over its headings. That is the version everybody has seen and nobody finishes: ordinary prose chopped into ten parts, where item three is a philosophy, item four is a product, and item seven is the writer running out. The numbered heading promises a set, and if there is no set the promise breaks in the first minute.

When the subject really is a list

There is a test, and I apply it before quoting. Write the items out. If every one is the same kind of thing, if you could add an eighth without changing what the article is about, and if removing one would leave a genuine hole, the subject is a list and the format is right. Documents, tools, warning signs, mistakes, questions to ask a supplier, rules from one regulation: these pass.

The subjects that fail are the ones with a single argument inside them. "Ten reasons to choose us" is not a list, it is a sales page with a number on it. "Eight ways to improve your warehouse" is usually one idea and seven paraphrases. When the test fails I say so, and that refusal is part of what you are buying here. A business that publishes another counterfeit list teaches its readers to skip the blog.

You do not need a list article if what people actually want is something to hold and tick off. That is a checklist or workbook, which is a tool rather than an article and gets kept. And if the test fails because the subject is really one idea people misunderstand, the piece you want is an explainer, and I will quote that instead.

What goes in it

The list, complete and honest in the headline. If there are six, the headline says six. Numbers are never padded to reach a rounder figure, and the piece never claims to be exhaustive when it is not.

An ordering principle, stated. Most costly first, most common first, chronological, or explicitly no order at all. A reader who cannot tell why item two sits above item three stops trusting the sequence.

Items of even weight. Each entry gets roughly the same room, because uneven entries mean the set was never parallel. An item needing three times the space is usually its own article.

Something specific inside each item. A figure, a name of a form, a threshold, a thing that goes wrong. Your own knowledge, one piece per item. Without that the list is the same list everybody else published.

A closing paragraph that is not a summary. What a reader should do having read all of them, which is usually one action rather than seven.

What you get

The parallel test, in writing, first. One page showing the proposed items and whether they hold together as a set. If they do not, it names the format I would write instead. There is no charge for that page if the answer is no and you decide not to proceed.

The article. Usually 900 to 1,600 words in a shared document you own, with the items, the stated ordering principle, the headline, title tag and meta description in a box at the top, and internal links marked where an item deserves a page of its own.

A one-line-per-item version. The bare list, for a sales email, a printed leaflet or the wall of a workshop.

One round of revision is included, and it is generally spent adding the item your longest-serving employee says everybody forgets.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Calgary company that installs commercial kitchen extraction asks for an article called "Ten ways to improve your restaurant kitchen." Written out, the ten items are three pieces of equipment, two habits, four vague aspirations and one thing that is really a service they sell. It fails the test in the first ten minutes, and I say so.

What survives the conversation is a real set. Every restaurant they work in faces the same inspection, and there are six documents the operator must produce on the day. Owners lose half a morning hunting for them, and two of the six are commonly missing. The article becomes "The six documents an extraction inspection asks for," about 1,200 words, ordered by how often each is the missing one. Each item names the document, who issues it, how long it takes to replace, and what happens if it is absent. It closes with one instruction: photograph all six and keep them in one folder. The bare list goes on a card the technicians leave behind, and the article originally requested is never written.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. The subject, the reader, and what you believe the items are. No charge.
2. The parallel test. Within a few days, the items written out and a plain verdict on whether this is a list or something else wearing a number.
3. A fixed price in writing. Agreed only after the test passes, with the item count, the length and one revision round stated.
4. A recorded call. Twenty to forty minutes in which you supply the specific detail that sits inside each item.
5. The draft. Seven to ten working days after the call, with the bare-list version.
6. Handover. Final article, short version and metadata, ready to publish or published for you.

What it costs

List articles are quoted as a fixed price after the half-hour call, and the quote follows the parallel test rather than preceding it. Price turns on the number of items, the research each needs, and whether the detail comes from a call with you or has to be established from documents. Everything is stated in CAD and fixed in writing before work starts. If the test fails you are quoted for the format that actually fits, and you are free to walk away having lost nothing. The pricing page shows the four ways of working here.

What happens next

Three things tend to follow. One item turns out to deserve its own piece and becomes an article answering that question alone. The bare list becomes something physical, a card or a one-page sheet, which is where a single printed sheet earns its keep. And because a genuine list dates whenever the underlying rules change, most people put it on a review cycle through updating the posts you already have. None of that is assumed. One list article is a complete piece of work, and it is yours once delivered.