A crucial, crucial thing about numbers, no matter how they’re styled: They need to be accurate. As soon as a writer writes the likes of “Here are twelve helpful rules for college graduates heading into the job market,” copy editors start counting. You’d be surprised at how many lists of twelve things contain only eleven things. This is an easy thing to overlook, but don’t. Otherwise you’ll find yourself with a chapter titled “67 Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation” that contains only 66 assorted things. Because I skipped no. 38. Did you notice?
