By Carl Hooker, CIO Advisor
1. While they are meant to be just quick little informative lists, they fail to put together a whole story, especially when they start out with point number 1 and no real lead-in paragraph, just a lengthy title that takes up too many twitter characters. (I will admit there are exceptions to this rule.)
2. Often times a point will be repetitive of a previous point just stated differently.
3. Sometimes the points repeat themselves.
4. They can be written just to drive traffic to a site like this post some joker made on iPad 1:1s: Top 10 Things NOT to do in a 1:1 implementation.
6. At times the poster will cheat and skip numbers to make it to a complete list.
7. There is often a clever one-liner or analogy as point that has nothing to do with the list. A clever blogger will include a photo with a clever caption just for effect.
8. Lists are generally a go-to tool when a blogger is short on creativity or has returned from a series of long trips and doesn’t really have anything to write about so he/she decides to be clever and create a list.
9. As a culture we crave lists. Almost as much as we crave broad generalizations about our society based on nothing more than the opinion of the writer.
10. Some points are just there for filler to make it to a nice round number like "10."
11. The person making the list forgets his title and posts too many points or a “bonus” point just for powerful effect.
Any points I’m missing? Comment below. And be sure to share so I can get some more traffic.
Carl Hooker is director of instructional technology at , where this is cross posted. Eanes ISD in Texas and blogs at Hooked on Innovation.
