Holy Cow! This week’s stylebook rules have been rough for me. There are still so many rules that I’ve been breaking and taught wrong! One thing for sure that I struggled this week regarding the AP book was “numerals.” I just could not remember every little rule and found myself flipping to that page in the stylebook one thousand times.
I think one of the most difficult things to remember
regarding numerals is when to spell out the number and when not to. Reading
through the stylebook I learned that only numbers under 10 are spelled out, and
never spelled out when referring to age. Kind of confusing, but this is super
valuable to me because, for some reason, I tend to write with numbers quite
often and now I can remember to actually spell out the smaller numbers and
refrain from looking dumb in my writing.
I think a good tip to remember when you are writing with
numbers is when in doubt don’t spell it out. Many times I try to spell out
every word and every abbreviation but in reality it is not necessary to do that
in communication writing. Of course, if you are referring to months, years or
numbers that have a figure (th, rd, nd), the under 10 spell-out rule applies.
EX: She has placed second in the mile run four years in a row.
While I am on the topic of numerals, I thought this photo was appropriate. =)
I came across this on Facebook this morning. "Tomorrow" Never Knows. I'm sure The Beatles would be pretty disappointed right about now.
Ha! Tomarrow never knows. Nope, it sure doesn't. Funny thing is that I've actually seen tomorrow spelled like this on way more than one occasion. It always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
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