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Editorial style guide: N

Editorial guidance for terms beginning with 'N'. Use the style guide to help make your content clear, accessible, and consistent with the rest of the website.

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Read about why we need an editorial style guide.

Numbers

Use words for one to ten and numerals for 11 upwards, plus percentages and money of any amount.

If the figure is in millions, use the word 'million'. If the figure is in billions, use 'billion'. Round numbers up to one decimal place unless there is a particular need to be more exact.

Here are some examples of correct number use:

  • four Team Bath athletes won medals in Brazil
  • 87% of students voted the University of Bath best for student experience
  • Gabby also netted the prize fund worth £1,500 in sporting equipment (note the comma in '£1,500')
  • 40 million people in the world are blind
  • the world population is projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050

Writing ordinal numbers

Use ordinal numbers to give the position of something in a series. We write ordinal numbers in different ways depending on the context.

Write rankings for university league tables as numbers.

For example:

  • 'Ranked 6th in the UK by the Guardian University Guide 2020'
  • 'We are ranked 4th overall out of 122 in the THE Student Experience Survey 2018'

Write ordinal numbers as words in all other instances.

For example:

  • 'first-year students'
  • 'third-year accommodation'
  • 'the second day in a row'

Also see Dates.

Numbered lists

Only use numbered lists when you're explaining instructions that need to be performed in sequence. In all other cases use a bulleted list.

Each point in a numbered list should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, for example:

How to connect to the internet:

  1. Get a network cable - these can be purchased from the campus computer shop in the Library if you haven't brought one with you.
  2. Connect your PC to the network point; there are two types of network connection, a single or a double socket. If you have a single socket, you may have to plug your machine into the back of the phone in your room.
  3. Start up your device and open a web browser, like Internet Explorer. It will take you to the machine registration page. The registration page, resnethost.bath.ac.uk, will only be visible if you are connecting using ResNet.
  4. Type in your University username, like abc123, and password.
  5. Tick the box to accept the Terms and Conditions.
  6. Reboot.

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