Do You Write the Date Correctly?
Many Choices for Formats
There are many ways to write the date: put the month first, put the day of the week first, write the date out in full, use numbers or just use abbreviations.The format used for the date also varies based on where you live, whether you are in the military and whether you want to show a formal or informal date. For example, in the United States, the month is listed first in the date while in Britain the day's date is listed before the month.
In this World War II letter, the writer lists where they are in Germany (Rudersdorf, deu) and the date shown as day.month.year (9.3.41).
U. S. Date Format
There are several formats used to write the date in the United States:- Short - This format includes the month, day's date and year like this: January 1, 2019. There is a comma after the day's date; but, there is no comma after the month.
- Long - This format takes the "short" format and precedes it with the day of the week like this: Tuesday, January 1, 2019. There are commas used after the day of the week and the day's date.
- Numerical - In this format the words are replaced with numbers like this: 1/1/2019 or 1/1/19.
There is no "right" or "wrong" format. The more formal formats include words (such as Tuesday, January 1, 2019) and the more informal format tend to use only numbers (such as 1/1/19).
ISO Date Format
There are many formats used to represent dates throughout the world.- In the U.S. the MM/DD/YY format is commonly used.
- Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY when expressing the date using numbers. When using words, the date would be written in Spain as 2 de enero de 2019 (expressed as January 2, 2019 in U.S. English)
- Japan uses YY/MM/DD or 2019 January 2. (Note the lack of commas or periods in the date.)
These inconsistencies are growing more confusing with the growth of international travel, trade and internet communication.
The international format was defined by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization in their document ISO 8601:2004. This document was created in 2004 to address the inconsistencies in how the date is expressed throughout the world.
ISO 8601:2004 expresses the calendar date using the year, month and day of the month - in that order. Specifically the ISO date format is YYYY-MM-DD:
- YYYY is the year (uses all the digits, i.e. 2019)
- MM is the month (i.e. 01 for January)
- DD is the day of the month (i.e. 02)
For example, "2nd of January 2019" in this ISO format would be written as 2019-01-02.
This ISO document does not solve all international confusion. For example, how does a native German speaker interpret 04/10/09 on a screen they are reading in U.S. English on a German website.
U.S. Military Date Format
The military date format includes a reference to time of day in addition to the month, day's date and the year. The time of day is expressed in Zulu time which is international time, not based on time zones.
As an example, in military messages or on maps showing ship and troop movements, the format is DDHHMMZ YY. As an example, "021545Z JAN 19" would represent 15:45 Zulu time on Wednesday the 2nd of January, 2019.
Spanish Date Format
Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY when expressing the date using numbers. When using words, the date would be written in Spain as 2 de enero de 2019 (expressed as January 2, 2019 in U.S. English)The name of month is not capitalized in Spanish. For example, "de enero" is used to say "of January."
French Date Format
Most of Europe, including France, uses DD/MM/YY when expressing the date using numbers. When using words, the date would be written in France as 2 janvier 2019 (expressed as January 2, 2019 in U.S. English)APA and MLA Date Formats
There are specific rules for stating the date using the APA or MLA writing formats:- The APA is an abbreviation for American Psychological Association and is the established form for use in written work within the social sciences.
- The MLA is an abbreviation for Modern Language Association. The MLA style is used for English literature and the humanities.
The date formats used in APA and MLA are very different:
- APA - Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderlund, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5).
- MLA - Book: John, James. U.S. Trade Relations. New York: Hummingbird Press, 1989. Print.
- MLA - Article: Yopp. H.K.. “Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children.” Reading Teacher, 1 May1992: 696-703. Print.
For more examples, check out the article and infographic on "How to Write a Bibliography" on YourDictionary.
Roman Numeral Date Format
Typically Roman numerals are only used to write the year, not the complete date.For example, the year 2019 would be written as MMXIX in Roman numerals. Interestingly, the ancient Romans notated it quite differently in the form of MMXVIIII.
For more information on writing Roman numerals, check out the article "Roman Numerals" on YourDictionary.
