I’d like to take a few paragraphs to vent, if you don’t mind.
If you read this column regularly, you know I typically follow AP style — and so do most of my clients.
In AP Style, when you’re writing statistics or percentages, you should use numerals followed by the word percent. Even if the number is less than ten (2 percent) you should use the numeral and the word percent.
When do you use the percent sign (%)? Never.
This rule is, incidentally, the same in the Chicago Manual of Style.
However, many bloggers (and even some print publication editors) have decided that it’s easier on readers’ eyes to use the % symbol.
I’m willing to adapt to nearly any style or grammar convention if the editor either:
- asks nicely enough
- pays me enough
I should add that, if I accepted a job, the editor is paying me enough .(Or I wouldn’t have taken the job in the first place.) I believe firmly that the client is nearly always right, so I follow these conventions when my clients request it.
Rules for a Reason
But I’d like to bring up the point of WHY we have style rules and conventions. It’s not just to make publications (even blogs) look consistent and pretty. It’s to keep writers from going loony.
When a client says, “Adhere to AP style,” this is shorthand for giving the writer an entire book of rules to follow. Ditto if they say, “We adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style.”
If the client gives me an entire sheet of writers’ style guidelines, I can handle that, too. Most of the time, it’s based on one style or the other (and, aside from the serial comma, there really aren’t many major differences between the two styles). Most of the time, in-house style guidelines include things, like company brands, that will only appear in work for that client — the rest of it is either AP or Chicago style. Once you figure out which it is, you follow that style and you’re okay.
When clients offer a lot of different exceptions to the rules, in writers get confused. Then editors don’t get what they want and have to spend time editing the work. No one is happy.
So far, I can’t come up with a compelling reason why anyone should use the % symbol instead of spelling out the word percent. Yet I see it everywhere.
What do you think? % or Percent? Is it time to change the rule book(s) to follow popular opinion? Should those writers who believe firmly in using the word “percent” stick to our principles?
In instant messages, texts, and even email, people abbreviate all the time, so it wouldn’t be surprising if writing “percent” as a symbol is a carry-over from those three forms of communication.
I agree with your opinion that the “percent” should be written out. At the rate we’re going, we’ll soon see “ur,”ru,” “b4,” and other annoying abbreviations all over the place, whether or not they’re appropriate.
Cheers.
I think it’s more appropriate to indicate; first the word percent after the number word, followed by the symbol, specifically in writing a memorandum or letter type business correspondence – (example: the graph illustrates that there has been a significant increase of ten percent (10%) in the consummables merchandise category). tnx & God bless!
AP style is percent. So it tends to be the journalism standard. But plenty of pubs and online sights use modified AP style. I use whatever the client requests.
I see no reason to not use the symbol. Regardless of usage of the symbol, or spelling the word out, the same idea is communicated; so, in that regard, it seems absurd to quarrel over it. Also, on a note regarding whether writers should stick to “principle”: it’s illogical to adhere to principle because it simply is principle (appeal to tradition).
B.
No one is quarreling … just tossing around different opinions.
Having said that, consistency and adherence to style rules are two of the reasons I used for spelling out the word percent.
The other is, to me, symbols just look *weird* tossed in the middle of text. So I know that’s silly, but that’s how I feel.
Merryl – You crack me up!! Readers like you (and others!) are one of the biggest things I will miss about this blog every week! We must stay in touch!
Phil – I hear ya, and I agree!
I prefer writing the word percent, but I agree that when I write for a client, whatever they specify is what they get, anything left up to me defaults to AP style.
Canadian press guidelines show that percent is actually written as “per cent”. (I generally edit and proof for mostly Canadian content.)
I prefer % than per cent. When scanning an article or any block of text really, I can immediately pick it out and find the important stuff in the article.
There may be a very tiny chance that the symbol is confused with ‘Modulus’ (the remainder of a division e.g. 23%10=3) but I doubt it.
% > per cent.
FYI – According to Chicago Manual of Style (which gives more detail than most manuals, AP included): In humanistic copy the word “percent” is used; in scientific and statistical copy, or in humanistic copy that includes numerous percentage figures, the symbol % is more appropriate.