\documentclass[final,letterpaper,twoside,12pt]{article}
\begin{document}
This is an example of \emph{list} environments.

\section* {Common types of lists}
%The asterisk in the above command means that the section will not be numbered
There are several types of lists, including:
\begin{enumerate}
\item ordered lists, like this one, where items have numbers or letters
\item unordered lists, where individual items are ``bullet points''
\end{enumerate}

\noindent Lists are useful for several reasons:
%with a lot of short paragraphs, you may not want them all indented, so you can
%start with the command above
\begin{itemize}
\item They make documents well-organized
\item They
avoid users having to create numbers, etc. by hand.
Note that an individual list item can cover several lines in a source document.
\end{itemize}

\noindent Lists can be \emph{nested} as well:
\begin{itemize}
\item An unordered list can contain
\begin{enumerate}
\item ordered lists
\item unordered lists
\end{enumerate}
\item An ordered list can also contain
\begin{itemize}
\item ordered lists
\item unordered lists
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}

\noindent To make the source file easier to read, we could rewrite the section above.

\noindent Lists can be \emph{nested} as well:
\begin{itemize}
	\item An unordered list can contain
		\begin{enumerate}
			\item ordered lists
			\item unordered lists
		\end{enumerate}
	\item An ordered list can also contain
		\begin{itemize}
			\item ordered lists
			\item unordered lists
		\end{itemize}
	\item Counters (for numbered lists) or bullets (for itemized lists) will change
		automatically as needed if lists are nested.
\end{itemize}
The latter method probably makes it easier to see where each list
begins and ends.

\section* {Other lists}
There is one other list environment, the \emph{description} environment,
for sets of definitions. It works like this:
\begin{description}
	\item [42] The answer to life, the universe, and everything
	\item [stuff] The technical term for many types of things
	\item [everything] Lots of stuff
\end{description}
Note the extra parameter in the description environment. Also note how the alignment
is handled. If you want something like this aligned differently, you may want to use a 
\textbf{tabular} environment instead, as follows:
\medskip %this skips a bit of vertical space

\begin{tabular}{ll}
	42 & The answer to life, the universe, and everything \\
	stuff & The technical term for many types of things\\
	everything & Lots of stuff\\
\end{tabular}
\medskip

\noindent If you want the bold text like in the description environment, you can do this:
\medskip %this skips a bit of vertical space

\begin{tabular}{ll}
	\textbf{42} & The answer to life, the universe, and everything \\
	\textbf{stuff} & The technical term for many types of things\\
	\textbf{everything} & Lots of stuff\\
\end{tabular}
\medskip

\noindent You can also make your own list environments if you want.
\end{document}