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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
It has long been the custom to spell out numbers below 10, as shown in this example from Newsweek (Ridley 2003):
… a rat has seven neck and 13 thoracic vertebrae, a chicken 14 and seven …
But authorities on scientific style now agree that all numbers should be expressen in numerals, rather than in words, in most circumstances:
… a rat has 7 neck and 13 thoracic vertebrae, a chicken 14 and 7 …
However, we should still spell out numbers that begin a sentence. The following example is from the abstract of a published paper:
Three thousand eight hundred and seventy-six mothers were examined by ultrasound at 7–12 weeks of gestation. One hundred and sixty-six (4.3%) were found to have a dead fetus.
But many readers find it difficult to grasp large numbers written in words, as in the example shown. Note how much easier to comprehend the passage becomes when it is recast so that the numbers fall somewhere in the middle:
Ultrasound examination of 3876 women at 7—12 weeks of gestation showed that 166 (4.3%) had a dead fetus.
Two numbers side by side
Placing unrelated numbers next to each other confuses the reader, as in this example taken from Mosteller (1992):
This group of patients with leukemia had an average white-cell count of 257, 112 lymphocytes and 145 other types.
Separate the numbers:
This group of patients with leukemia had an average white-cell count of 257, of which 112 were lymphocytes and 145 other types.
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