Numbered lists

Use numbered lists, sometimes called ordered lists or task lists, when the order of the list items is important, such as in procedural information or for sequential steps a user must follow. If you add substeps, use an ordered list marked by lowercase letters.

Qualities of numbered lists

Numbered lists must have the following qualities:

• A complete lead-in sentence punctuated by a period or a colon
• More than one list item
• Up to two levels
• Parallel sentence construction
• One action for each list item
• End punctuation if the list items are complete sentences
• No end punctuation if the list items are characters, words, or phrases

For more guidance on using lists, see Best practices for writing with lists.

Example

The following example of a numbered list contains a complete lead-in sentence. Each item in the list contains a single action and uses parallel construction. In step 3, the procedure has substeps marked by lowercase letters.

Search for sales of a specific product

Search for how many simulation style games were bought yesterday.

1. In the time range picker, change the time range to Yesterday.
2. Run the following search:
   sourcetype=access_* status=200 action=purchase categoryId=simulation
3. Find the number of purchases for each type of product.
   1. Remove categoryId=simulation from your search criteria and run the search again.
   2. Locate the unique categoryId values by selecting the categoryId field in the Selected Fields list.
   3. Select a categoryId name. The categoryId is added to your search and the search is automatically run again. The results show the number of purchases for that product.
4. For the number of purchases made each day of the previous week, run the search again for each time range.