How to Break Up a Long List Within a Single Sentence

Here are two sentences from my bio (which I’m in the process of rewriting):

1. He’s spoken before clients such as Nascar, Axa, Visa, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Defense, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

2. His work has appeared in top-tier publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Fast Company, Forbes, and Mashable.

The problem? These lists are seven items long, which is a mouthful when read aloud (or even just read on a screen; our eyes glaze over them — even mine).

Ideally, I’d turn these eye sores into bullet points. After all, this is what I teach my students.

And yet, I fear that bullets in the middle of a short bio would be awkward.

Is there another solution? Why, yes, there is! To break up each list into two smaller sets; to create clusters. Here’s what I came up with:

1. He’s spoken before clients such as Nascar, Visa, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as federal agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

2. His work has appeared in top-tier publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, along with business-oriented outlets like Fast Company, Forbes, and Mashable.

As you can see, I used the phrases “as well as” and “along with” to create demarcations and thus pauses. As a result, the revised sentences are far more readable than the original ones.