Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A review of the writing rule about writing small numbers.

Sometimes you just feel the need to write a blog post about something in writing that everyone is supposed to know. Then you read a stack of papers and see that almost no one knows it. So here goes:

Write small numbers as words.

There. I wrote it.

Two questions: (1) why do this and (2) how small is small?

Why do it: We all make mistakes. We all make typographical mistakes. If I intend to press the 5 on the keyboard and instead press the 6, I have made a mistake that is about 20% error. If I type 2,3014 when I intended to type 2,3015 I have made a mistake that is about 0.1% error. Typographical mistakes in small numbers introduce a much larger percent error. Hence, I should type six and not 6 as I am far less likely to introduce a 20% error.

How small: This is open to debate for those who debate such things. Some authorities want us to type the numbers zero through ten while others want this to continue up through ninety-nine. I leave that to those authorities to debate.

A bigger point: Don’t put numbers in the middle of your writing. Point to a table or something that holds the numbers. Writing is difficult enough without have numbers in the middle of it.