Spell out a number when…
- Spell out a number when the number begins a sentence. Five hundred employees were laid off at Stanley Corporation.Note: You can rearrange the sentence if spelling out the number would require three or more words.
Incorrect: 829 people (or fifty-eight percent) who responded to the survey reported that they held jobs in fields outside of their college majors.
Correct: Of those who responded to the survey, 829 people (or fifty-eight percent) reported that they held jobs in fields outside of their college majors.
- Spell out a number when the number is written in one or two words (except as noted on the back of this handout). The correct procedure requires twelve painstaking steps.
- Hyphenate a number written as two words if it is under one hundred. There are twenty-two students in my class.
- Use a hyphen to separate the numerator from the denominator in written fractions. Two-thirds of the class chose the correct answer.
- Form the plural of numbers by adding “s” or -“ies.” In the sixties, there were many hippies roaming the countryside.Hundreds of geese flocked to the lake before heading south.
Use a number when…
- A number requires more than two words
The population of Butterfield is 634.
- Addresses
525 Elwell Avenue
- Dates
June 30, 1969
- Exact times of day 11:11 a.m.
- Exact measurements followed by symbols or abbreviations 55 m.p.h.
- Exact amounts of money$110.79
- Decimals and fractions 2.5 3/5
- Percentages, scores, or statistics38% score of 10-1
- Volume, chapter and page numbers
Vol. I, Chapter 12, page 87
- Act, scene, and line numbers
Act III, Scene 2, lines 23-27
Taken from: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/numbers.html#Spell