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In the reviewer's comments on my paper, he/she suggests replacing the following Arabic numerals with English letters (in the following examples). I believe his/her suggestions are correct. But I'm not quite clear on the reasoning behind this.

For example,

  • $x$ has 5 incident edges. -> $x$ has five incident edges.
  • There are 4 edges belonging to $F$. -> There are four edges belonging to $F$.
licheng
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    English usage, that’s all. – A rural reader Aug 16 '23 at 14:56
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    https://math.stackexchange.com/q/241551/42969 – Martin R Aug 16 '23 at 14:58
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    It is common in ordinary written English to spell out the names of small integers. There is controversy about whether that convention should apply in mathematical writing (I think it shouldn't). The journal probably has a style sheet that addresses the question. – Ethan Bolker Aug 16 '23 at 14:59
  • The AMS style recommends (softly) spelling out single digits numbers and numerals for the rest. See here – NDB Aug 16 '23 at 14:59
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    https://www.masterclass.com/articles/when-to-spell-out-numbers-explained lists the rules for whether to use numerals or words in various style guides - but all of them recommend a word for the integers one to nine. – aschepler Aug 16 '23 at 15:00

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