Numbers spelled out or used in figures

Generally in ordinary text matter, whole numbers under one hundred should be spelled out and larger numbers expressed in figures, but see below for exceptions:

Tickets range from two to five rubles. There are twenty girls and sixteen boys in my class. Her grandmother is eighty-eight years old. Next year has 336 days. The population of the city is 300 830.

1. When numbers appear together in the same series, sentence, or paragraph, and are categorically related, they should be treated alike; if they have three or more digits, they should all appear as figures:

The company currently employs 112 women and 60 men. Three chess games were played that day which lasted 30,44 and 105 moves.

2. Normally numbers in dates, page numbers, decimal fractions, and percentages should be expressed in figures. Use th, st, or d after figures in dates if you want:

July 10, 1989 (July 10th); page 15; p. 324; an average of 10.35; a total of 100.5; 7 per cent interest; a maximum error of 10 %.

3. A number that would ordinary be expressed in figures should be spelled out if it occurs at the beginning of a sentence:

Forty men and 106 women were hired during the year. Thirty-seven per cent of employees receive low wages.

4. Approximate or indefinite numbers in hundreds or thousands should be spelled out:

At least ten thousand people were present at the meeting. My task was to write a twenty-five-hundred-word essay.

5. Very large round numbers may be expressed in figures followed by the appropriate unit spelled out:

A budget of $ 390.8 million; approximately 4.5 billion stars; over 10 billion possible combinations.

6. Fractional quantities, however, are usually expressed in figures:

After supper we walked for 3 1\2 miles more. These ceilings are 2 1/2 metres high.

7. When amounts of money are referred to in the text, the unit of currency should be spelled out if the amount is spelled out; if the amount is expressed in figures, it should be preceded by the symbol $ or any other:

He earns ninety-five dollars a week. Mr. Brown won $ 450.

The bus fare is now forty-five cents.

8. Amounts of money containing decimal fractions should be expressed in figures; if an amount which ordinarily would be spelled out occurs together or in series with a fractional amount, it should be expressed in figures:

The price went up from $5.00 to $5.50.

9. Generally ordinal numbers should be spelled out except whenawkward or difficult to read:

This is his third try. His name is the seventeenth on the list.

Fifth Avenue; Fifty-Ninth Street; 2430 West 111th Street

 

APPENDIX 1

Series Time Line

 

In all ages people have expressed their beliefs and emotions in their art. They have chronicled both the everyday and benchmark events of their lives on any object at hand – walls, ceilings, floors, pottery, canvas, stone, wood, and cloth. People’s urge to express themselves seems implacable, and we are the fortunate recipients of this legacy – fortunate because by studying their art, we can understand the intimate values and lives of our ancestors, not just the dates of their wars or the geographical location of their civilization.

The nine programs of History through Art explore each era’s unique trends, as well as link that era to the past. Each program showcases the era’s great works of visual art and draws further insight from authentic period music and the thoughts of each era’s important writers. The programs are: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance, The Baroque, The Enlighten­ment, Romanticism, The Pre-Modern Era, and The Twentieth Century.

ANCIENT GREECE

800 BC-146 BC

      ANCIENT ROME

       509 BC - AD 476

           THE MIDDLE AGES

                    AD 1-AD 1450

                  THE RENAISSANCE

                               1400-1550

                       THE BAROQUE

                                     1545-1715

 

                                 THE ENLIGHTENMENT

                                                     1715-1789

 

                                             ROMANTICISM

                                                     1789-1860

                                                    THE PRE-MODERN ERA

                                                                     1845-1900

                                                            THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

                                                                                 1900-Present

 

APPENDIX 2

Sample Dictations

Dictation 1

Early Years of Christianity

 

When the Romans conquered people, they did not force them to adopt the religious beliefs of the Empire. If they paid a yearly offering to the emperor, they were free to worship as they pleased. This religious freedom led to the spread of Christianity so that by the time the Empire broke, Christianity was the best-established and most widely accepted religion.

In Italy, Rome became the center of Christianity since both St. Peter and St. Paul preached the Gospel of salvation there. But there was a time when Christian religion was out of law, and believers were punished and blamed for many of the troubles of the Empire. To worship as they pleased and to escape punishment, they found shelter in the catacombs. The catacombs were located outside of Rome. Here the early Christians worshiped, buried their dead, and at times even lived.

The Emperor Constantine became a Christian and in 313 in Milan he adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Great Roman Empire and since that time the life of the Christians changed.

 

Dictation 2

Early Christian Art

 

Some of the first Christian art known to exist are the frescoes painted on the ceilings and walls of the chapels in the catacombs. These paintings were symbolic. At first symbols were borrowed from the Romans around them. For example, Juno’s peacock was the symbol or immortality. The phoenix was a symbol for Christ’s resurrection. Christ as the Good Shepherd became a common and comforting symbol for the early Christians since it showed God’s protection and care.

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire small meeting places were not enough for all believers. So Christians adopted the Roman basilica plan for their worship settings. The basilica plan ideally suited the Christians’ worship services because they could sit and listen to the preaching of the Gospel.

The basilica was a long, brick building with a timber roof. The interiors of the basilicas were highly decorated with rows of columns, mosaics of colored glass. Gold was also used on the walls, creating a shimmering surface. The plain brick exteriors showed a great contrast to greatly decorated interiors. This was symbolic of the richness of the spirit compared to everyday life.

 

Dictation 3

The Roman Conquest of Great Britain

 

The Romans landed on the shores of Britain in 55 B.C. Their leader was Julius Caesar. Long before the coming of Caesar, men and women had lived and died and worked and fought in the land, which we now call England. But we have no record of their life: no historian has told us of their fortunes and we know nothing about them. It was Julius Caesar who wrote down in words the story of the strange new people he had found and a description of the far-off country in which they lived. And thus the written history of Britain begins with the landing of Caesar. He made two raids during the years 55 and 54 B.C. He penetrated as far as the Thames but did not succeed in quick conquest. Caesar was angry with the Britons because they had been helping the Gauls to fight the Romans. He didn’t get very far in the thick forest, which covered southern Britain, and the next year he and his army went back to Gaul.

The Romans didn’t come back until 43 A.D., almost a century later. This time their leader was the Emperor Claudius. They landed an army of forty thousand men in Kent. Many people in the south of England welcomed them, but in the north and west they had to fight hard. In 61 A.D. the army of Queen Boadicea attacked the Romans. But even her chariots, which had large knives sticking out of their wheels, couldn’t beat the Roman soldiers. However, the invaders had great trouble in the north, on the border with Scotland. The Scottish tribes were so fierce that the Emperor Hadrian ordered the Roman army to build a huge wall along the border. You can still see Hadrian’s Wall today. It’s three metres thick, five metres high and one hundred and fifteen kilometers long.

 

Dictation 4

From the History of Great Britain

Departure of the Romans

 

The Romans stopped in Britain for nearly four hundred years, and during the greater part of that time there was peace and quiet in the country. So long as the Roman soldiers were there, there was little fear of any fresh enemy coming and taking the country. But at length there came news from Rome that a formidable enemy was marching against Italy. At such a time every Roman soldier was needed to defend Italy and Rome; and orders were sent that the armies, which were in Britain, should return to Italy.

This was sad news for the Britons, for by this time they had come to look upon the Romans more as friends, than as enemies, and they feared to loose the Roman soldiers who had so long protected them from every enemy. Besides, the Romans had built towns in Britain; many of them were married to British wives, and they had begun to teach the Britons the arts they had brought with them from Italy.

For all these reasons, the Britons were upset when the order came for the Roman legions to sail across the Strait of Dover and leave the white cliffs of Britain behind them. The roman armies left Britain in 410 A.D. because northern tribes, the Huns and Goths, were attacking Rome. They had given the country a system of roads, which was to be important for many centuries; Christianity, which was now the Emperors' religion, and a language, which had a great influence on the way English, is spoken today.

 

Dictation 5