When do you spell out numbers in APA?
The guidelines to spell out numbers in APA style writing are as follows:
- Spell out the ordinal numbers “first” through “ninth” and the cardinal numbers “one” through “nine” unless they express time, measurements, or percentages/percentiles (e.g., “We interviewed 30 fifth-grade students from three schools”).
- Use numerals for numbers 10 and greater or 10th and higher (e.g., “The 11th-grade students took a survey”).
- Numbers that begin sentences should also be spelled out even if they are greater than 10 (e.g., “Twelve of the participants said they prefer reading nonfiction”).
- When possible, avoid beginning sentences with double-digit numbers. Instead, reword the sentence so that you can use numerals (e.g., “The results showed that 15 students prefer graphic novels”).
When you’re working on APA style essays, QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker can help you write numbers correctly.