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Subject:Re: Periods After Whole Numbers From:"Donald T. Robertson" <drobertson -at- NM-US -dot- CAMPUS -dot- MCI -dot- NET> Date:Tue, 17 Sep 1996 20:38:59 -0600
Greetings All,
My sincerest thanks to all of you who responded to my query about placing
periods after whole numbers. I don't want to take up a lot of bandwidth
posting a lengthy summary, so I've included only a brief one below. If
anyone is interested in a detailed summary, I'll be glad to e-mail you
privately (but, give me a couple of days to get everything together).
I've been doing what my supervisor wants - that is, writing periods after
whole numbers - for almost 3 years now. I acquiesced because I didn't see a
real problem in it: this is small potatos compared to my other objections.
But, now I have an explosivity report into Sandia National Labs for peer
review (I did the experiments, too!). *All* of my reviewers strongly
disagreed with this usage. This is what prompted me to reexamine this issue
and ask for your advice.
With only one exception, all of your responses were decidedly in favor of
losing the period. The srongest argument was that using the period implied
mathematical precision that may not be justified by the data. Essentially,
this was Sandia's objection also. The second best argument was that the
period comprised extra information the reader had to process for no good reason.
I now have the ammunition I need to argue in favor of "losing the period."
Thanks for all your help!
********************************************************************************
Don Robertson "To infinity ... and beyond!"
drobertson -at- nm-us -dot- campus -dot- mci -dot- net Buzz Lightyear
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