Show Numbers as Numerals When Writing for Online Readers

Traditional copywriting style-guides for print publications dictate that you spell out many numbers.

Research issued by Jacob Neilsen suggests that this would be an incorrect approach when writing for online readers.

Instead, Jacob Neilsen recommend that all significant numbers, ones which you want your readers to notice, should be written as numerals.

A summery of their advice is:-

• Write numbers with digits, not letters (23, not twenty-three).
• Use numerals even when the number is the first word in a sentence or bullet point.
• Use numerals for big numbers up to one billon:

  • 2,000,000 is better than two million.
  • Two trillion is better than 2,000,000,000,000 because most people can't interpret that many zeros.
  • As a compromise, you can often use numerals for the significant digits and write out the magnitude as a word. For example, write 24 billion (not twenty-four billion or 24,000,000,000)
• Spell out numbers that don't represent specific facts

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