Fortunately, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) took the problem into account and published a standard, ISO 8601. It covers the date and time formats used in the exchange of information, although standards for dates written in words are not covered in this document. The Canadian federal government`s guidelines for purely digital data are those contained in the Federal Identity Program Manual, Chapter 1.2, which refer the requester of information to the current national standard or ISO (i.e., 8601:2000.ISO. There are some rules that can be a bit fuzzy when it comes to writing the date. Keep these tips in mind. Many organizations and individuals opt for purely digital data, especially lists, forms, and data that is ultimately processed by the computer. This not only improves readability for people who speak different languages, but also makes it possible to perform sorting and mathematical operations without additional data manipulation. But as Canadians are particularly aware, there are several ways to write data into numbers. Europeans prefer the day-month-year format, while Americans insist on the month-day-year format. How to solve this puzzle? Although the dates are read aloud as if they were ordinal numbers (twenty-first September), it is correct to write the number in cardinal or ordinal form, or to write the entire date in words. It is not recommended to write the date as an atomic number if the year is included (21 September 2004 or twenty-first September 2004). This should be changed to the cardinal form on September 21, 2004.

In formal legal writings, such as the presentation of the facts in a letter, the preferred form is May 29 (if it is not necessary to specify the year). So, if the year has already been identified, it is better to write that Salazar spoke to the opposing lawyer on May 29, rather than Salazar spoke to the opposing lawyer on May 29. The first version is visually cleaner and tighter. However, dates are written differently in American English because the month precedes the day and is often a comma after the day. For example, February 21, 1999 or October 7, 2005. In British and other European writings, the day appears before the month. According to ISO 8601:2000, dates and times are written in descending order of magnitude from left to right. Dates are formatted YYYYMMDD (basic format) or YYYY-MM-DD (extended format). The basic format (without dashes) is appropriate when computer readability and disk space are of paramount importance, and the extended format (with hyphens) when the document is intended for general drives. All numeric dates are also written in the format YYYY-MM-DD as specified by ISO.

This internationally accepted way of displaying data is common in state, corporate and other official practices. One of the advantages of this system is that it makes it easy to sort and store files and folders. For file names and data entries, hyphens are usually omitted. To specify the date, you can write the exact date or specify only the month, day, or year. The data is written differently in the American and British styles. Depending on the text, numbers or words can be used. In formal writing, the date is usually written in full, but it can be abbreviated if necessary. If you want to be sure that the data in your documents is always clear and correct, don`t forget to write your proofreading. Submit a free trial document today to learn more.

Teo Spengler earned a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley`s Boalt Hall. As Deputy Attorney General in Juneau, she served before the Supreme Court of Alaska and the U.S. Supreme Court before opening the office of an assault plaintiff in San Francisco. She holds a master`s and master`s degree in creative writing and enjoys writing blogs and legal articles. His work has been published in numerous online publications, including USA Today, Legal Zoom, eHow Business, Livestrong, SF Gate, Go Banking Rates, Arizona Central, Houston Chronicle, Navy Federal Credit Union, Pearson, Quicken.com, TurboTax.com and numerous legal websites. Spengler divides his time between the French Basque Country and Northern California. Under modern rules, few, if any, states restrict the way you write data into legal documents, except that they require standard U.S. use: the first month, the second day, and the last year. Some lawyers spell the month and use numbers for the day and year, while others use all the numeric numbers. Spelling out the month eliminates confusion when it comes to other countries where the day comes first.

As long as the intention is clear, all forms are acceptable. Standard form documents usually leave a space for the date that needs to be completed by the person filling out the form. If it is part of a certain date, the month can be shortened. Write the first three letters of the month, followed by a period. Don`t shorten May, June, and July. In formal writing, abbreviations of dates in tables and graphs are useful, but are avoided in continuous text. In very formal situations, such as invitations or business letters, you may need to write the date in words. You can get it right in several ways: Legal writing standards: dates, numbers, quotes, and headers In the age of calendar apps, we don`t need to write the date often.

However, this means that it`s easy to forget about the rules for writing data in different places. So it`s a chance that we`re here to help! Did you know that people around the world write the date in different ways? Depending on where you are, you can put things in a completely different order. This format change is called « Endianness » and comes from Gulliver`s travels by Jonathan Swift. In Gulliver`s travels, there is a political faction that has pledged to break his eggs on the big side, and another faction that is just as committed to breaking his eggs on the small side. The large side faction is called « Big Endians », and the small group is called « Little Endians ». At some point in history, these terms have been associated with the way different societies write the date. Writing it day after day is the little-endian format, while writing in the first year is the big-endian format. It is fair to say that these methods are interchangeable. If you are writing a scientific article, you should consult your professor`s preferred citation method.

When filling out official documents or forms, pay close attention to instructions and sample text. Other places in the world use the big-endian form, which tries to avoid confusion by putting the year first. Much of Asia uses this form when writing the date. The letters that follow the numbers above are a bit old-fashioned, but they are not wrong. You can also see these numbers by superscripting. However, regardless of the date format you use, make sure that it is applied consistently to all dates in your document. In formal European scriptures, the date is usually written in the same way as the American version. So the 4. January 2005 simply changed the month and day to January 4, 2005. Note that there is no comma in a formal European version of the date. The comma that separates the date of the year is an Americanism that Europeans do not follow.

Yesterday, when legal documents were written with a lot of formality, the data was written in both letters and numbers. This ruled out the possibility that a small mistake could cause big problems. The system is still used to write cheques, and some banks and agencies continue to use this format for title deeds. 1. If you only write the month and year, do not use a comma between the month and the year and do not set it. Write October 2014, not October 2014 or October 2014. When writing officially, always write down the date in its entirety if it is part of a sentence. This usually includes specifying the day of the month, month, and year: if you write the date with numbers only, they can be separated by a hyphen (-), a forward slash (/), or a period (.). Most formal fonts accept a forward slash (/).