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Lesson 4 of 7 · about 16 minutes

Documents, Numbers and Quotes on the Page

You'll be able to

  • Tell percent change from percentage-point change and write each correctly
  • Compute per-capita figures and inflation-adjusted dollars, and say which year's dollars you used
  • Read budget numbers without confusing adopted, actual, revenue and fund balance
  • Quote accurately, paraphrase fairly and attribute documents so readers can check them

Numbers and quotes are where readers decide whether to trust you. One wrong percentage and the person who knows the budget stops believing the rest. One quote that the speaker did not say, and you have a correction to run and a source who will never call back.

Percent and percentage points

This is the most common math error in local news, and it is easy to fix once you see it.

Percent change compares a new number with an old one. Funding that goes from $30 million to $38 million rose about 27 percent, because 8 divided by 30 is 0.267.

Percentage points measure the gap between two percentages. If voter turnout went from 31 percent to 38 percent, it rose 7 percentage points. In relative terms that is a 23 percent increase (7 divided by 31). Both sentences are true. "Turnout rose 7 percent" is false.

A Global Investigative Journalism Network guide to math errors puts the rule in one line: if you are comparing two percentages, it is percentage points. Interest rates, tax rates, poll numbers, graduation rates, unemployment rates: all points.

On style, the Associated Press changed its rule in 2019 to allow the % sign after a numeral (3.1%), but it still spells out "percentage points." Many publications still spell out "percent." Pick one style and keep it through the article.

Before you write "increased X percent," write the two numbers you are comparing on a scrap of paper. New minus old, divided by old. If both numbers are already percentages, stop and use points.

Prefer plain words when they are true. "Doubled" beats "increased 100 percent." "Fell by a third" beats "decreased 33.3 percent." And keep the count down. A good habit is no more than three numbers in a paragraph.

Per capita

Big places have big numbers. A county of 90,000 people will spend more on almost everything than a county of 9,000. Comparing raw totals tells readers that big places are big.

Divide by population to compare. Town A spends $2 million on roads for 8,000 residents: $250 a person. Town B spends $3 million for 20,000: $150 a person. The raw totals say B spends more. Per capita says A spends two-thirds more per resident.

Use the right population figure and say where it came from. Between censuses, the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program publishes yearly estimates for states, counties, and cities and towns, labeled by vintage (the newest at this writing is Vintage 2025). Name the vintage in your notes and in your citation, because the bureau revises earlier years.

Per capita is not always the right denominator. Road spending per mile of road may be fairer than per resident. Crimes per 1,000 residents can mislead in a tourist town where the visitors outnumber the people who live there. Ask what the number is supposed to measure, then divide by that.

Inflation

A dollar in 2015 bought more than a dollar does now. When you compare money across years, adjust it, or at least tell the reader you did not.

The formula: old amount times (index in the new year divided by index in the old year). The usual index is the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics runs a free CPI Inflation Calculator built on it. Use the calculator rather than a number from memory, and write down the months you compared.

Example: a raise that was a cut

The Fenwick library's book budget was $500,000 in 2015 and is $600,000 this year. That is a 20 percent increase in nominal dollars.

Suppose the inflation calculator shows that $500,000 in 2015 has the buying power of about $680,000 today. (This number is for illustration. Run the real one for your own months.) In that case the library now has $80,000 less buying power than it did in 2015, a cut of about 12 percent in real terms.

Weak: The library's book budget has grown 20 percent since 2015.

Honest: The library's book budget has grown from $500,000 to $600,000 since 2015, but after inflation it buys about 12 percent less, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

Budget numbers

Government budgets have their own vocabulary, and mixing up the terms produces stories that are technically sourced and completely wrong. The ones that trip people most:

  • Proposed, adopted, amended, actual. A proposed budget is a request. The adopted budget is what the board approved. Amendments change it during the year. Actuals are what really came in and went out. "The city spends $1.2 million on parks" needs to say which.
  • Revenue versus expenditure. A budget that "grew $3 million" might mean more spending, more revenue, or both. Say which.
  • Funds. Governments keep separate funds: a general fund, a water enterprise fund, a capital projects fund. Money in one often cannot legally pay for another. A big balance in the water fund does not mean the city could have hired more police.
  • Fund balance. Roughly, reserves carried over. The Government Finance Officers Association recommends that general-purpose governments keep at least two months of regular general fund revenue or spending in unrestricted fund balance. A balance well above that is worth asking about. So is one well below.
  • Levy versus rate. A property tax levy is the total dollars a district collects. The rate is what each property owner pays per unit of value. Values can rise while the rate falls, so a "tax cut" headline can sit on top of bigger bills.

When the numbers come from a document, check the table's headers and footnotes. Is it thousands of dollars? Fiscal year or calendar year? Does the fiscal year start in July or October? Ask the finance director to walk you through a page. Most will, and the call takes ten minutes.

Documents in the text

Name the document in the sentence and link the original. "According to the district's 2024 engineering study of east side mains" lets a reader find the thing. "Records show" makes them take your word. The SPJ Code of Ethics asks journalists to use original sources whenever possible and to give readers access to source material when it fits.

Link the PDF on the agency site, not a news story about the PDF. If the agency might take it down, save a copy and an archived link. If you obtained it through a public records request, say so and say when. Use Source Checker to look over your source list before you publish.

Quotes

A quote in quote marks is a promise that the person said exactly those words. Associated Press guidance is plain: do not change quoted words, even to fix grammar. If someone's wording is clumsy, paraphrase it fairly without quote marks. Use ellipses to drop words only with great care, and never in a way that changes meaning.

Use quotes for what only the speaker can give you: opinion, emotion, a vivid phrase, a promise, an admission. Do not quote facts you can state yourself.

Before and after: when to quote

Weak: "The meeting will be held on April 3 at 6 p.m. at the district office," Ruiz said.

Better: The board will take public comment again April 3 at 6 p.m. at the district office.

Worth quoting: "If we wait five more years, we'll be fixing breaks at 2 a.m. instead of replacing pipe on a schedule," Ruiz said.

Paraphrase is not a license. It must keep the speaker's meaning, including their hedges. If an official said the plan "might" cost $4 million, your paraphrase cannot say "will." If they said it about one neighborhood, do not widen it to the town.

Attribution: "said" is almost always the right verb. It is invisible. "Claimed," "admitted," "insisted" and "conceded" each carry a judgment about the speaker, and readers notice. Put the attribution after the first sentence of a long quote, not at the end of the third.

Fragmentary quotes (three words in quote marks inside your sentence) are best avoided unless the exact phrase is the news. They can make a speaker sound worse than the full sentence did.

Try it

  1. Fix these sentences. (a) "The graduation rate rose 6 percent, from 82 percent to 88 percent." (b) "Larkin County spends more on jails than Dorr County," where Larkin spent $6 million for 60,000 people and Dorr spent $2.4 million for 15,000. (c) "Spending on snow removal has soared from $200,000 in 2010 to $260,000 today." Use the BLS calculator for (c) with real months.
  2. Find a budget document from any government you can reach online. Identify one adopted figure and its matching actual figure. Write one accurate sentence using each.
  3. Take a 200-word interview transcript, yours or invented. Pick the two quotes worth using in full and paraphrase the rest in one paragraph without losing any hedges.
  4. Run your source list through Source Checker and replace any secondhand link with the original document.

Check yourself

1. A town's unemployment rate went from 4 percent to 6 percent. Which sentence is correct?

2. Town A spent $2 million on roads. Town B spent $3 million. Town A has 8,000 people and Town B has 20,000. Which spends more per resident?

3. A budget line was $500,000 in 2015 and $600,000 this year. What should you check before writing that spending 'rose 20 percent'?

4. An official says a word you think is a mistake: 'We're going to irregardless move forward.' What does AP guidance say?

5. A city's adopted budget shows $1.2 million for parks. The year-end report shows $900,000 spent. Which is the better number for 'what the city spent on parks last year'?

6. What is the best way to attribute a figure from a public document in an online article?

Terms in this lesson

Percentage point
The arithmetic difference between two percentages. 4 percent to 6 percent is a 2 percentage point rise.
Per capita
Per person: a total divided by the population. Lets you compare places of different sizes.
Real dollars
Dollar amounts adjusted for inflation to a single year's prices, so amounts from different years can be compared. Unadjusted amounts are nominal dollars.
Actuals
What a government really collected or spent in a period, as opposed to the adopted budget, which is the plan.
Fund balance
Roughly, money left in a government fund after expenses, carried into the next year. Often called reserves.
Paraphrase
Restating what someone said in your own words, without quote marks, while keeping their meaning.

Full glossary

Sources