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This simple shortcode plugin allows you to list posts as a bulleted list linking to the full article. You can limit the list to posts from a specific category and you can select the number of posts to show. The order</order> and <code>orderby options lets you sort the list too.

Usage is simple. Create a page or post and use the code [showposts category="2" num="4"] - this will show all 4 posts from category 2. Another example [showposts category="1" num="-1" orderby="date" order="DESC"] shows all the posts from category 1 ordered by the date (newest post first).

By default, only 5 posts are shown (unless you use the num option) and sorting in by date (oldest to newest).