In academic writing for English and the other humanities, symbols such as %, +, $, and = are acceptable in charts and graphs. Dollar signs are acceptable with figures: $11 (but not with words: eleven dollars). Units of measurement can be abbreviated in charts and graphs (4 in.) but not in the body of a formal text ( four inches). Check with your instructor about using a word or a figure with the word percent: some documentation styles, such as MLA, require a word (ten percent), while others, such as Chicago, require a figure whether the word (10 percent) or the symbol (10%) is used.

Informal writing also has strong conventions for using certain symbols, such as the hashtag (#) for categorizing social-media posts (see 18c) and the symbol @ for tagging Twitter users. Consider what symbols may be conventional in your context.

For Multilingual Writers: The term hundred