Percentages

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Diane Williams wondered whether to use the % symbol or
 spell out "percent" in a report to Congress. Diane, you
 made the distinction between scientific and humanistic in
 your question, which leads me to suspect you're asking your
 question based on a house style guide that makes this
 distinction. That being the case, perhaps you should look
 for any previous reports in the series to determine how
 they handled this nonproblem.

 Nonproblem? Well, to me the distinction between scientific
 and humanistic is artificial in this context (and in most
 others, for that matter). I've never met anyone who didn't
 understand what % meant, and whatever we may think about
 the folks in Congress, I suspect they'll understand it just
 fine. My general practice (specifically, scientific
 editing) is use the symbol, not the words, to refer to
 numbers. If you need more justification than that, you
 could always fall back on the cliche that scientists deals
 in numbers whereas researchers in the humanities can't
 count. <gdr>

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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