Re. Spelling numerals and capping bullets

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

 Elizabeth Carmack asked two questions:

 1. Spelling out numbers? We've always used a simple rule:
 any number that resulted from a measurement, and is thus
 accompanied by a unit of measure (metres, %, etc.), uses a
 numeral; indices, which started out as having a unit of
 measure in both the numerator and the denominator, use
 numerals; and anything counted rather than measured, and
 thus unaccompanied by units of measure, uses the numeral
 for 1-9 and spells out from "ten" and up.

 One possible source of difficulty that requires a style
 decision: What do you do about units of time such as days?
 Again, we used a simple rule: if we discussed fractional
 units of time, stuff which is implicitly measured rather
 than counted, we used numerals throughout the text (e.g.,
 it'll take you 2.5 days to get there); if we only talked
 about generic whole days, we used both numerals and text,
 as appropriate (it'll take you less than three days).

 2. Capping first words in bulleted lists: Here, use a
 simple rule based on common sense. If the item is a
 complete, grammatical sentence, start it with a capital. If
 not, you'd only use a cap if the word is a proper noun. Use
 similar logic to determine how to punctuate the points in
 the list: end with periods (or !, ?, etc.) if they're full
 sentences; use commas or semicolons at the end if the
 bullets each complete the sentence that introduces the
 list; otherwise, since you're not being grammatical
 anyways, choose whatever style pleases you and be
 consistent. Also make the points parallel: don't mix
 sentences and sentence fragments.

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.