Conventional and Non-Conventional Uses

To Spell or Not to Spell  Spell out  MLA: If number is expressed in one or two words  twenty, twenty-five, one hundred, four thousand  APA: Numbers 1 through 9  Only one student  In the last seven days  For 10 years  When sentence begins with a number  Four hundred is expressed as MCDX in Roman numerals.  One 0’clock on Friday afternoon marks the end of spring semester for me.

To Spell or Not to Spell  Don’t spell out  If, in a sentence, one of several numbers expresses a similar idea or concept  Flat screen televisions can range from $400 four hundred dollars to $2,999; however, a dependable flat screen can be purchased for about $700 seven hundred dollars.  Days and years in a date  May 1, 1947  Addresses  th Avenue North  Numbers that are part of a title or designation using proper nouns  Catch 22 (the movie)  Interstate 35  Decimals and percentages  14 percent (or %, depending on convention in field or discipline)

Other Number Issues  Commas and decimals with figures  In the United States: 4.5 (four and five-tenths); 23,000 (twenty- three thousand)  In some countries and cultures, decimals and commas are reversed: 4,5;  Decimals with large numbers: million citizens or 1.7 billion grains of sand  Exact monetary amounts  $3.44 or $  Scores and statistics  The Twins won over Chicago yesterday, 7-3.  The average age of a graduate student in English is 27.  A high GRE score in the verbal section would be above 500.  The study revealed a mean age of 78.

Other Number Issues  Pluralizing numbers APA and MLA  The 4s in the Garamond font are more elegant than those in Times New Roman  The 60s were turbulent years in world politics.  Much of the rock music lyrics of the 1970s are relevant today.  In designations or titles of divisions  Page 7  Chapter 14  Day 5 of the experiment