- Five times as much, thousands of times, a tenth of the students
- Half past nine, midday, quarter to ten, 9 o’clock
If you’re asking what is the rule for writing numbers in words, the recommendation is to employ particular or specific conventions when you write numbers in words. It includes the following:
If you’re writing numbers in numerals in your academic or official paper, the convention is to only use numerals for numbers starting from 10 and above.
Most of the tips and conventions on rules for numbers in writing are in line with the well-known standards APA standard, MLA standard, and others.
Tip #2: Write approximate numbers and times of the day (some) in words
When it comes to writing numbers in words, especially for academic papers, you should write one or two-word numbers in words. In addition, general academic writing requires writing certain numbers in words: numbers below one hundred (such as ninety-eight), ordinal numbers (such as twenty-sixth and third) and rounded numbers (such as ten million, four thousand).
Therefore, you should pay attention to the use of acceptable standards and conventions when it comes to using numbers in sentences and also use the best sentence changer online.
- In your paper’s abstract, use words to write numbers – APA convention
- Use numerals for numbers accompanied by a unit of measurement
- Express statistical information with digits. Example: The study involved 90 employees, 12 employers, and 5 contract staff from different companies.
Numbers should be easy to read! If that means broken rules or seeming inconsistencies, it’s for a good cause.
Associated Press agrees but makes an exception for years and expressions that combine numbers and letters, such as 401(k).
Occasionally writers to the CMOS Q&A insist that in order to be rendered as speech, an expression must be spelled out and that therefore numerals should not appear in dialogue. This makes a certain amount of sense. “Hand me my .22, Mavis!” may be the conventional way to write rifle calibers, but “Hand me my twenty-two, Mavis!” lets readers hear how it’s pronounced.
Breaking the rule for one of the numbers but not the other can help guide the reader’s eye:
Aesthetics
Fiction+ posts at Shop Talk reflect the opinions of its authors and not necessarily those of The Chicago Manual of Style or the University of Chicago Press.
When we think about writing numbers, we tend to think of research papers, financial reports, sports columns, and other quantity-laden nonfiction settings. But novelists and playwrights and poets also puzzle over how to style numbers. Some happily leave such matters to their copyeditors, while others spend valuable writing time out of a compulsion to get it “right.” If you’re the latter type (or their copyeditor), read on for comfort and advice.
Consider the book covers in the image at the top of this page and you’ll see the same title spelled two ways in some instances. Obviously the publishing teams held diverging views on which style would better serve to catch a buyer’s eye. Even members of the same team can disagree: in a case that I was able to check online, the 2014 Engage Books edition of Twelve Years a Slave uses the numeral 12 in the title on the cover but spells out Twelve in the title on the copyright page. Graphic designers and marketers no doubt won the day on those cover designs. From experience I know this isn’t uncommon.
Mending it took twenty-four 48-inch rods.
Mending it took 24 forty-eight-inch rods.
When we think about writing numbers, we tend to think of research papers, financial reports, sports columns, and other quantity-laden nonfiction settings. But novelists and playwrights and poets also puzzle over how to style numbers. Some happily leave such matters to their copyeditors, while others spend valuable writing time out of a compulsion to get it “right.” If you’re the latter type (or their copyeditor), read on for comfort and advice.
Mending it took twenty-four forty-eight-inch rods.
Mending it took 24 48-inch rods.
I finished 165th
In a passage where several large numbers appear, spelling them out can befuddle: “Here’s what they stole: Monday was four hundred ten dollars, Tuesday was three fifty, and yesterday was seven hundred ninety.” Numerals might be more readable: “Here’s what they stole: Monday was $410, Tuesday was $350, and yesterday was $790.” Use the style that works best for your readers.
From the Chicago Manual of Style
In editing, “consistency” is practically a mantra. The trouble with writing numbers is that consistency isn’t always practical. In fact, the basic rules themselves demand a type of inconsistency, since they tell us to spell out some numbers (zero through one hundred, for starters) but not others (see CMOS 9.2). The reason? In writing, readability is more important than consistency.
- Topics MathNumber Recognition & CountingWriting Numbers
- Price Available through related products
Help your child practice counting, identifying, tracing, and writing number 1 with this printable worksheet.
Teach your child how to count and write numbers. Practice counting and writting number 0.
- Topics MathNumber Recognition & CountingWriting Numbers
- Price Available through related products
Learning the Alphabet The Complete Guide
Everything you need to effectively teach the alphabet and help your child to build a strong reading and writing foundation. Increase your child's learning progress today!
Ideal for introducing your students to the beginning math concepts of shapes.
- Topics MathNumber Recognition & CountingWriting Numbers
- Price Available through related products
- Topics MathNumber Recognition & CountingWriting Numbers
- Price Available through related products
Team Yankee had ten M1 Abrams tanks, five M113 armored personnel carriers, and two TOW missile vehicles.
Okay, that sentence is a mess. When fixing it up, numerous rules apply. You should know the first
Crafting prose is different from writing a recipe or bank statement or itinerary. Cleaned up, the sentence should read:
12. Use numerals to call attention to an exact time or when including a.m. or p.m.
The gun on the mantle
This, from a hot-blooded discussion on the discussion board of the writers’ cult favorite, the Chicago Manual of Style:
Remember the spell-out-numbers rule? These complicated spelled-out numbers can look weird to readers, so s ome thriller writers balk at that rule and make their own style choices. (Your future publisher, however, may have a different style sheet.)
“Numerals that are usually numerals (such as phone numbers, seat numbers, odd dollar amounts, and so forth) seem to scream to stay that way. In my opinion, spelling them seems to add a layer of awkwardness and unnaturalness.”
She was a fourth grade nothing.
Langston Hughes lived on East 127th Street.