by Nick Gromicko and Kate Tarasenko
When writing inspection reports, it’s sometimes difficult to decide whether to write numbers using numerals or as spelled-out words. The rule of thumb for grammarians is that numbers as measurements and percentages should be rendered as digits, and numbers describing amounts and as length of time should be rendered as words, particularly when referring to single-digit numbers (amounts under 10), or where the use of double-digit numbers may cause visual confusion for the reader.
For example:
But this is okay:
In addition to conforming to the basic rules of English, the numerals-versus-words distinction helps to maintain visual uniformity, and it makes information recognition easier for inspection report readers.
Also, note the use of hyphens with numbers. In adjective phrases that modify or describe the nouns they precede, the phrases should be hyphenated, like this:
Otherwise, no hyphenation for the numbers is needed, like this: