spell out whole-number words for one to ten; use figures for numbers above ten There were two people in the queue ahead of me, and six behind me. I need to buy Christmas presents for 12 people this year.
use a combination of a figure and a word for very large round numbers (such as multiple millions/billions etc), or abbreviate it to ‘m’, ‘bn’ etc The population of the earth is now 7 billion people. The population of the earth is now 7bn people. The budget came in at just under £2m.
if there are a lot of figures in a paragraph or text, some above ten and some below, use figures throughout to allow easy comparison by readers There were 2 people in the queue ahead of me, and 22 behind me. The queues for other advisors had 10, 3 and 12 people.
spell out words for 'first', 'second' and so on up to and including 'tenth'; use numbers and superscript st/nd/rd/th for larger ordinal numbers She was the first person from her school to get a place at Oxford. He got an upper second, to his relief. She got a 3rd class degree. The 17th president of the United States was Andrew Johnson.
always use figures for percentages, measurements and currency. Use commas to punctuate large numbers He scored 10% of the available marks. The cost, at £5.99, was less than their overall budget of £50. The population of New York City is estimated to be 8,008,278.
use either the 12- or 24-hour clock – not both in the same text. The 12-hour clock uses a full stop between the hour and minute; the 24-hour clock uses a colon The lecture starts at 11.30am and ends at 1pm. The lecture starts at 11:30 and ends at 13:00. The lecture starts at 11.30am and ends at 13:00.
use ‘noon’ or ‘midnight’ instead of ‘12 noon’ or ‘12 midnight’ The closing date for applications is noon on 12 July.
do not use ‘am’ or ‘pm’ with 24-hour times The lecture starts at 16.00 pm.
if using the 12-hour clock, don’t use additional ‘.00’ for times on the hour, and close up space between the number and the ‘am’ or ‘pm’ The lecture starts at 9am. The lecture starts at 11.30am and ends at 1pm. The lecture starts at 9.00am. The lecture starts at 9 am.
always put the day before the month Easter this year is on 13 April. Easter this year is on April 13.
don’t use ‘th’ etc with dates – just the number and month Easter this year is on 13 April. 11th November is Armistice Day.
only use days with dates for emphasis or the avoidance of confusion/ambiguity The wedding is on 30 December. The Modern Superstitions conference is on Friday 13 April. The wedding is on Saturday, 20 December.
elide periods where it is not ambiguous to do so The ‘short twentieth century’ refers to the period 1914–91. Inner-city flats cost £100–200,000.[Price could start at £100 or £100,000.]
to refer to an academic or financial year, you can use either the format ‘2011–12’ or ‘2011/12’ – but ensure you are consistent throughout the text The Proctors for 2013–14 will be elected in the 2011–12 academic year. Profits are up year on year: the company did better in 2011/12 than in 2011/12.
if using ‘from’ with a start date/time, always use ‘to’ to indicate the end date/time rather than an n-dash; alternatively, just use an n-dash and no ‘from’ Michaelmas term runs from October to December. Michaelmas term runs October–December. Michaelmas term runs from October–December.
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