Lists

In lists, people often use ‘as well as’ to replace ‘and’: ‘Jay wore a shirt, trousers, shoes, as well as a coat.’ Remember that the ‘as well as’ section of the sentence is for the extras, and your list should essentially be complete before that. So you need an ‘and’ before ‘shoes’.

Another thing that authors can do is forget about the list’s lead-in by the end of the list.

You must:

• live,
• laugh,
• bird watching.

I’ve written about in-text lists for the CIEP, if you’d like a bit more detail: ‘A Finer Point: On the list’.