Dates, times, money and numbers
Dates and times
We use ‘to‘ in date and time ranges – not hyphens. For example:
- tax year 2011 to 2012
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (put different days on a new line, don’t separate with a comma etc)
- 10 November to 21 December
- when space is an issue, you can use truncated months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec
- 5:30pm (not 1730hrs)
- midnight, not 00:00
- midday, not 12 noon, noon or 12pm
- 10am to 11am (not 10–11am)
When referring to ‘today’ (e.g. in a news article) make sure you include the date as well. For example: ‘The minister announced today (14 June 2015) that…’
Money
Use the £ symbol – £75
Don’t use decimals unless pence are included – for example use: £75.50 but not £75.00.
Don’t use ‘£0.xxm’ for amounts less than £1 million.
Write out ‘pence’ in full – ‘calls will cost 4 pence per minute from a landline’.
Numbers
Write all numbers in numerics (including 1 to 9) except where it’s part of a common expression and it would look strange, eg ‘one or two of them’. Use common sense.
‘One of the 13 words in this sentence is causing problems: this 1. This sentence would be better with ‘one’ as the final word.
If a number starts a sentence, write it out in full (‘Thirty-four hula-hoops found in researcher’s filing cupboard’) except where it starts a heading.
For numerals over 999 – insert a comma for clarity. ‘It was over 9,000’. Spell out common fractions, such as one-half, but use a % sign for percentages, ie 50%.
Use ‘500 to 900’ and not ‘500–900’ (except in tables).
Addresses: use ‘to’ in address ranges, for example: 49 to 53 Cherry Street.
Ordinal numbers - Spell out first to ninth. After that use 10th, etc.
In tables, use numerals throughout.