I am revising a clinical trial report in the light of comments from
reviewers and would like some advice about when numbers should be given
as arabic numerals and when they should be written in words:
I have seen guidelines that numbers 1 to 10 should always be written out
as text and larger numbers if they occur at the beginning of a sentence.
However, my preference has usually been to use arabic numerals because
they are easier to type, and, I believe, quicker to read than the text
form. These numbers have usually been extracted from the output of a
statistical procedure such as SAS PROC TABULATE, so keeping the arabic
form makes it easier to check that the number in the report matches with
the source output.
Two examples you might like to think about (not 2 examples ...):
6 ECGs were classified as ..., 18 as ... and the remaining 30 as ...
31 values of ... and 5 values of ... were below the limit of detection.
Note that both examples have several numbers, and in the first, I want
the reader to compare 6 with 18 and 30.
Responses to me please, and I will summarize to the list.
Many thanks
Tim Auton
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The views, opinions and judgements expressed in this message are solely
those of the author. The message contents have not been reviewed or
approved by Protherics.
T R Auton PhD MSc C.Math
Head of Biomedical Statistics
Protherics Molecular Design Ltd
The Heath Business and Technical Park
Runcorn
Cheshire
WA7 4QF
UK
email: [log in to unmask]
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