Most technical writing best practices and style guides dictate that single-step ordered and unordered lists should actually not be lists, but rather regular sentences. This is because if a list is only one item long, it isn't really a list, so a bullet or number is superfluous.
IBM:
Use at least two list items in an ordered list. You can have one item in an unordered list to match the format of other unordered lists in the same area.
However, the Red Hat Supplementary Style Guide contradicts this, so it is therefore what we should follow:
When a procedure contains only one step, use an unnumbered bullet.
In an ideal world, I think we should remove this guidance since the industry across the board tends to say don't use a bullet. However, I know this might not be possible. So, I'd be curious to know why we have this rule? Maybe adding it to the Supplementary SG would add helpful context?
Thank you!
Most technical writing best practices and style guides dictate that single-step ordered and unordered lists should actually not be lists, but rather regular sentences. This is because if a list is only one item long, it isn't really a list, so a bullet or number is superfluous.
IBM:
However, the Red Hat Supplementary Style Guide contradicts this, so it is therefore what we should follow:
In an ideal world, I think we should remove this guidance since the industry across the board tends to say don't use a bullet. However, I know this might not be possible. So, I'd be curious to know why we have this rule? Maybe adding it to the Supplementary SG would add helpful context?
Thank you!