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Best way to show numbers on personal statement?

MisterE

For example, if i said "i have been attending a club since the age of ..."

would it be best to put 5 or five?

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Reply 1

Jackathon

I should imagine five, although I'm not sure.

Reply 2

Cowards

Who cares.

Reply 3

MisterE

Who cares? I blatently do since i'm asking. :/

Reply 4

visesh

I usually use words for the numbers ten or under and digits for larger numbers.

Reply 5

Pulkpull

I'd use letters for now. If you're getting desperate for characters at the end you can change it, as I'm sure it won't make any real difference.

Reply 6

Mos Def

Yeah, the rule is to spell numbers from 0 - 10, including ten. Anything above, use the digits.

Reply 7

RosiePosiePuddingAndPie

I'd spell it - it looks better and it's what my English teachers tell us to do at college :smile:

Reply 8

Excalibur

I always write it in words in extended pieces of writing, but somehow I completely forgot about this for my PS. After I sent it off I noticed I had written "for 11 years..." :rolleyes:

Ah well, I doubt it matters!

Reply 9

bruisepristine

I wrote numbers out (like seventeenth) but I also put a date in (1604) for which I used numbers.

Reply 10

generalebriety

RosiePosiePuddingAndPie

I'd spell it - it looks better and it's what my English teachers tell us to do at college :smile:

"Since nineteen ninety-seven, I have been captain of the..."

As people have said, you're meant to spell out one through to ten, and write in digits 11 or higher numbers.

Reply 11

bruisepristine

hm, so I should have put '17th'? I think it looks better written out personally.

Reply 12

MisterE

I feel a bit random after starting this thread now! I know it doesn't really matter but life is too short to think about why you post threads which don't matter!

Reply 13

RosiePosiePuddingAndPie

generalebriety

"Since nineteen ninety-seven, I have been captain of the..."

As people have said, you're meant to spell out one through to ten, and write in digits 11 or higher numbers.

Alright, smarty pants!! :p:

Well for small numbers, I'd spell it anyways.

You can put whichever version you prefer the look of, basically, bruisepristine. :smile:

Reply 14

generalebriety

bruisepristine

hm, so I should have put '17th'? I think it looks better written out personally.

Well, technically, yeah, you "should have" put that... but I don't particularly agree with prescriptive grammar in any sense, so as long as seventeenth looks right to you (and it does to me too), then to hell with what you "should" be doing. :p:

Reply 15

username102860

generalebriety

As people have said, you're meant to spell out one through to ten, and write in digits 11 or higher numbers.

Surely that just looks terribly inconsistent? :confused:

For example: 'Since the age of eight, I have studied 11 of the 100 methods of the 'Kama Sutra'. Of course, when I turned ten, I realised that I shouldn't know about such 'mature' themes until I was 18, but alas, it was too late, and my ten year old self had the sexual prowess of a 30 year old.'

To be honest, just choose one or the other style and stick to it throughout. I think I just stuck to numbers with mine as it's quicker and easier to read for an admissions tutor who just skim reads each PS. A digit or two is much easier to read when skim reading than a number written out.

Reply 16

Juno

To further confuse things:

I would do ages as digits, and everything else as words.

At the age of 8, I ate five cheese sandwiches.

Reply 17

Good bloke

The most commonly used style guides in the publishing industry state that whole numbers from one to one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence should be spelled out. For other numbers, numerals are used. The rule of spelling out only single-digit numbers leads to such awkwardness as “I saw 12 candidates, of which nine were rejected” and is not generally followed. Dates are normally written with numerals. Don't forget the thousands separator (",") in large numbers other than dates.

Reply 18

Drongo

I changed mine back and forth as the character count became more or less crucial. The ideal was to spell out as per Eng essay rules if poss BUT as everyone keeps pointing out a PS is not an Eng essay and admissions tutors are fully aware of why different conventions might be used.