4.3 Numbers in a Transcript

Blueprint topic 20104 asks you to "properly transcribe numbers in a transcript." The Guide to Judiciary Policy only requires punctuation and spelling to be "appropriate standard usage" (§ 520.36.45), so number style comes from style guides and the client's style sheet. AAERT's own answer key for the Scalini practice transcript shows a consistent pattern, and that is the pattern to learn.

The core rule: words for one through nine, figures for 10 and up

From the Scalini key:

• "How long have you been a police officer? 30 years."
• "It took probably maybe 10 minutes."
• "I'm not sure what size that one was, but mine has 15."
• "Scalini's have a two-year-old daughter."
• "We will take a 15-minute recess."

That is the common court-reporting pattern: spell out one through nine; use figures for 10 and above. Some style sheets spell out through ten. Whichever you follow, apply it consistently throughout a transcript.

Always use figures for these

Case numbers, docket numbers and exhibit numbers are copied exactly as they appear in the case information, including letters and hyphens.

Use words for these

• A number that begins a sentence: "Thirty years." If a speaker starts with "Nineteen ninety-five was the year," write "Nineteen ninety-five was the year," or, if the style sheet allows, restructure only the punctuation, never the words.
• Approximate and indefinite amounts: a couple of, a dozen, hundreds of times, a half a dozen magazines (Scalini key).
• Clock times without a.m., p.m. or minutes, spoken informally: "I come in around four and I stay 'til four or five-ish" (Scalini key); four o'clock.
• Simple fractions standing alone: one-half, two-thirds.
• Ordinals in speech that are not dates: the first time, her second visit, the fourth floor.

Keep the speaker's form

The transcriber chooses the style but never the substance:

• "September the 24th" stays September the 24th. Do not rewrite it as September 24.
• "Twenty-fourth of September" becomes 24th of September, keeping the speaker's word order.
• "A half a dozen" stays as spoken, even though "half a dozen" is more standard.
• "Fifty bucks" becomes 50 bucks, not $50; the speaker did not say "dollars."
• "Two thousand and five" as a year becomes 2005; as an amount of money said with "dollars," $2,005.
• Never convert units ("six feet" is not "72 inches") and never correct arithmetic. If the witness says "10 plus 10 is 25," the transcript says so.

Money, time and dates in detail

• Dollars: use the dollar sign with figures and do not repeat "dollars." Write $50, not $50 dollars. Whole amounts need no .00.
• Cents alone: 50 cents.
• Large round amounts: $3 million, 2.5 million.
• Times: 9:00 a.m. on title pages and in parentheticals; in testimony, write what was said: about 9:15, nine o'clock, noon.
• Dates: October 6, 2025, with a comma after the year mid-sentence: On October 6, 2025, the hearing began.

Compound numbers and hyphens

• Spell compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine with a hyphen: Thirty-seven people.
• Hyphenate a number used as a compound adjective before a noun: a 15-minute recess, a two-year-old daughter, a 10-foot ladder. Not after the noun: the recess lasted 15 minutes.
• For two numbers side by side, spell out one of them: twelve 10-foot poles.

Numbers spoken as strings

• Telephone numbers: (802) 863-1599.
• Addresses: 175 Main Street; 2415 Tower Street, Suite 3C.
• Citations: 373 U.S. 83 (Chapter 16).
• Spoken digit by digit: "one-oh-one Main" becomes 101 Main.
• Zero vs. "oh": both become 0 in figures.

Practice

Exam traps

• Converting the speaker's form. September the 24th is not September 24; a half a dozen is not 6.
• Mixing styles in one series. When related numbers in one sentence straddle the rule, many style sheets put all of them in figures: 5 cars and 12 trucks.
• Adding precision. "Around nine" is not 9:00 a.m.
• Dropping units. "Six-two" for height is typed as spoken: six-two; do not add feet and inches.