1. Grammar for Quantitative
Statements
David Marsh
Good First Drafts: Training for Better Writing
CORE Spring Meeting
Baltimore, MD – 25 April 2013

2. • Preliminaries
• Rules
• Quiz
• Formula
Outline

3. Preliminaries

4. • We write them all the time!
– Situation analyses, desk research,
baseline surveys and most other
activities yield numbers.
• The challenge: report important
numbers:
– Correctly
– Persuasively
“Quantitative sentences”

5. • Refers to the rules to write a correct, clear,
conventional quantitative sentence with:
– the necessary information
– and often in human terms (“human face”)
• The sentences may not be short because
quantitative information can be long.
– The message (i.e., the word part) is short.
“Grammar for quantitative
sentences”

6. Rules

7. Familiar rules (easier)
• Do not start sentences with numerals.
• Spell numbers less than 10.
• Start sentences with people as subjects:
– “Vietnamese children experience two times…”
– “Minority mothers suffer more…”
• Not with abstractions, like:
– “Figure 1 presents…
– “Table 2 shows…”
– “The average weight gain…”
not
Save the Statistics
Save the Children

8. • Reference a table, figure or graph at the end of
the first sentence in the paragraph referring to it:
– Youth have more employment opportunities in Saigon
than in Sapa (Table 2).
• If the paragraph makes more than one
observation from the same table, figure, or
graph, referencing “(Table 2)” at the end of the
first observation is enough for that paragraph.
• Reference “(Table 2)” again in following
paragraphs, as necessary.
Familiar rules (easier) – 2

9. • Include supporting evidence, such as percents
and sometimes numerators and denominators.
• Compare the following statements:
– Boys are smarter than girls in Hue (% with IQ >
120: 30 vs. 10% for boys and girls, respectively).
– Boys are smarter than girls in Hue (% with IQ >
120: 30 [3/10] vs. 10% [1/10] for boys and girls,
respectively).
– Boys are smarter than girls in Hue (% with IQ >
120: 30 [300/1000] vs. 10% [100/1000] for boys
and girls, respectively).
Familiar rules (harder)

10. • Omitting biostatistical “significance levels”
when they are important to the argument.
– Boys are smarter than girls in Hue (% with IQ
> 120: 30 [300/1000] vs. 10% [100/1000],
p<0.05, for boys and girls, respectively).
• Omitting the reference.
– Boys are smarter than girls in Hue (% with IQ
> 120: 30 [300/1000] vs. 10% [100/1000],
p<0.05, for boys and girls, respectively)
(Ha PB et al, 2020).
Familiar rules (harder) – 2

11. • How much evidence to include
requires judgment.
• No one wants to read paragraphs
packed with sentences with
percents, numerators, denominators
and p-values
– especially if a table has all these data.
Judgment

12. • If the message in a sentence is not
central, we can be more concise by
starting with an indicator instead of a
person:
– Bednet use for children under five in
Ethiopia was low (2%) (Demographic and
Health Survey, 2000).
– School completion was higher in District X
than District Y (% completing 10th grade:
40 vs. 26%, p<0.05) (Table Z).
Judgment – 2

13. • More evidence should be included
when:
– The sentence has a central message
– There is no supporting table
– The evidence (numerator, denominator,
or p-value) affects the interpretation of
the message
Judgment – 3

14. • Nearly all mothers (90%...)
• Most of the girls (70%...)
• More than half of all youth (54%...)
• About half of the sample (45%...)
• About a third of respondents (30%...)
• One in four families (23%...)
• Few newborns (12%...)
• Almost none of the MOH staff (6%...)
Helpful semi-quantitative
words

15. Quiz

16. Table 1: Delivery by Skilled Birth
Attendant in Vietnam, 2002 (%)
Region Skilled Attendant*
Northern Uplands 55.9
Red River Delta 100.0
Vietnam 85.0
*Doctor, trained nurse or trained midwife (2002 Demographic and Health Survey)
Most Vietnamese women (85%) reported delivery by
skilled attendant with wide regional variation (56% in
Northern Uplands vs. 100% in Red River Delta) (Table 1).

17. Table 2: Vietnamese Women with at
Least Weekly Exposure to Mass Media,
2002 (%)
Group Newspaper TV Radio All 3
Urban 61.1 95.0 51.6 38.5
Rural 22.3 83.7 54.4 15.5
Total 29.7 85.8 53.9 19.9
2002 Demographic and Health Survey
Most Vietnamese women reported watching television at least
weekly (86%) (Table 2). Far fewer listened to the radio (54%) or
read a newspaper (30%). Urban women read a newspaper far
more commonly than their rural counterparts (61 vs. 22%), but
residence had little effect on exposure to television or radio.

18. Formula

19. Table 1: Level of Exclusive Breastfeeding
by Age and Sex, Quang Tri Province 2001
Child Sex Level as % (N)
< 2 Mos < 4 Mos < 6 Mos
Female 47.0 (24) 50.0 (45)* 42.1 (58)*
Male 43.5 (21) 25.5 (49) 22.2 (64)
Total 45.3 (45) 37.7 (94) 31.8 (122)
*p<0.05
Study the table. What do
the data say? What is
most important? How
would you write it?

20. Table 1: Level of Exclusive Breastfeeding
by Age and Sex, Quang Tri Province 2001
Child Sex Level as % (N)
< 2 Mos < 4 Mos < 6 Mos
Female 47.0 (24) 50.0 (45)* 42.1 (58)*
Male 43.5 (21) 25.5 (49) 22.2 (64)
Total 45.3 (45) 37.7 (94) 31.8 (122)
*p<0.05
The next slides draft
and revise a “message
sentence” from this
table step by step.

21. Draft 1:
The rate of exclusive breastfeeding
was better for girls.
True sentence, but
the comparison is
not complete.

22. Draft 2:
More insight (and a complete
comparison), but the subject
is still a biostatistical term.
The rate of exclusive breastfeeding
was better for girls than for boys,
especially after age two months.

23. Draft 3:
Good. The sentence now has
a child, not a statistic, as the
subject! But the passive
voice remains.
Girls were more likely to be exclusively
breastfed than boys, especially after
two months of age.

24. Draft 4:
Mothers exclusively breastfed their daughters
longer than their sons.
Better. Now we have a
forceful “message” in the
active voice. But where is the
evidence?

25. Draft 5:
Mothers exclusively breastfed their daughters
longer than their sons (among infants < 4 months
of age: 50 vs. 26%, p<0.05; and < 6 months of
age: 42 vs. 22%, p<0.05, for girls and boys,
respectively).
We now have the short
message and the long
evidence to justify it.

26. Draft 6:
Mothers exclusively breastfed their daughters
longer than their sons (among infants < 4 months
of age: 50 vs. 26%, p<0.05; and < 6 months of
age: 42 vs. 22%, p<0.05, for girls and boys,
respectively) (Table 1).
We now have the message,
the evidence, and the
reference.

27. “The Formula”
• Epidemiological and biostatistical information
“with a human face” has three parts:
– Human-Centered Message in active voice
• Open Parenthesis
– Epidemiological Evidence comma
– Biostatistical Evidence - if available
• Close Parenthesis.
– Reference
• Period (or “period reference” – if using superscripts)
HCM (EE, BE) (ref) .

28. Draft 7:
Mothers reported longer exclusive breastfeeding
for their daughters than for their sons (among
infants < 4 months of age: 50 vs. 26%, p<0.05;
and < 6 months of age: 42 vs. 22%, p<0.05, for
girls and boys, respectively) (Table 1).
Yes! This is even more
careful – our analysis is
based on reports, not
observations.