No, it's not good practice to use the symbols as abbreviations, Pat. I
know that this is explicitly stated in our U.S. pubs (NIST 811, for
example) but I'm not sure it is stated explicitly in the brochure -- I
suspect it is not. However, you don't see it done that way there. Only
when we refer to the symbol itself or state a quantity do we use it in a
sentence.
OTOH, by way of email-ese, symbols often are used here to mean the
entire word. I personally don't mind it here, though I'm somewhat
against that practice, but I do take points off in my students' lab
reports if they do it in formal writing.
Jim
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Pat Naughtin wrote:
....
> BTW do you know if it is good SI practice to use an SI symbol as part of a
> sentence as you have here as 'in a ha'. I have always written the unit name
> in full under these circumstances and reserved the unit symbol to use in
> conjunction with a number. However, I have no idea why I do this and I can't
> supply a reference.
....
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
