How To Write Six O'clock

7 Summit Tips on Writing the Fourth dimension

Every bit anyone who has turned up for a midday meeting at midnight will tell you, clarity is vital when writing the time of 24-hour interval. But at that place are many ways to write the time, and the best approach isn't e'er obvious. We have a few tips to assist, though.

one. Words or Numerals?

You can write the fourth dimension of day using either words or numerals. If you are using numerals, you would ordinarily include both hours and minutes, although you can omit the minutes in less formal writing.

For instance, all the following would exist acceptable:

She gets up at six in the morning every solar day.

She gets up at six:00 in the morn every solar day.

She gets up at 6 o'clock in the morning every mean solar day.

As a dominion, though, you lot would only write out the fourth dimension as words when:

It is part of a total sentence, specially in descriptive or literary writing.
Using a 12-60 minutes clock (never with a 24-hour clock).
You're referring to an judge or round time (e.g., maxim "10 thirty" is fine, but you would not usually write "twenty-four minutes after eight").

In almost other cases, numerals are the clearer option for writing the time, especially in scientific and technical writing, where precision is vital.

two. AM and PM

The abbreviations AM and PM can be used when writing the time equally numerals. Each applies to a different fourth dimension of twenty-four hour period:

AM is short for ante meridiem, meaning "earlier noon."
PM is short for postal service meridiem, pregnant "after noon."

As such, we use AM and PM to indicate the time of solar day when we are using a 12-60 minutes clock. We can run across how this works more clearly if we write out various times of day in both 12-hour and 24-hr formats:

Time	12-60 minutes Clock	24-Hr Clock
Midnight	12:00 AM	00:00
3 in the morning	03:00 AM	03:00
One-half past eight in the morning	08:xxx AM	08:xxx
Midday	12:00 PM	12:00
Three in the afternoon	03:00 PM	15:00
Half past eight in the evening	08:30 PM	20:30

Y'all can see hither that we need AM and PM with the twelve-hour clock for clarity. Without them, we wouldn't be able to tell the departure betwixt, e.g., midday and midnight. Too, though, you do not need to include AM or PM with a 24-hour time considering information technology is already clear.

There are too several means to write AM and PM, including:

ALL CAPS, small caps, or lower case (due east.g., 12 AM, 12 AM, or 12 am)
With or without periods between the messages (e.g., 8 PM or 8 P.M.)
With or without a space later on the number (due east.g., 1 AM or 1AM)

Consistency is key here, so make sure to apply one style throughout your document. You may also want to bank check your style guide if you lot accept one, every bit some organizations will have their own rules for how to write AM and PM.

3. When to Use O'clock

You'll have noticed nosotros use "o'clock" in one of the examples in a higher place. This term means "of the clock," and then we tin use it to show that a number refers to a fourth dimension.

Even so, you should merely apply "o'clock" with exact hours:

Information technology is precisely 5 o'clock. ✔

I'm leaving at 7 o'clock. ✔

Information technology arrived at 7:34 o'clock. ✘

The gig starts at half past 7 o'clock. ✘

We'll save a discussion of when wine o'clock is for another web log postal service.

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4. Past, Later, Till, and To

When writing the time as words, use "after," "past," and "to" for intervals between hours. Yous can combine these terms with either numbers or the words "one-half" and "quarter" depending on the time in question:

Apply after or past for intervals up to half an hour past the hour.
Apply to for whatever interval after the half hr upwardly to the hour.
Use one-half past to indicate 30 minutes past the hour.
Employ quarter past or quarter later for xv minutes after the hour.
Utilise quarter to for fifteen minutes up to the hour.

For example, nosotros would use the higher up accordingly in the following times:

7:05 → V after seven

7:xv → Quarter by seven

vii:30 → Half by seven

7:45 → Quarter to eight

7:55 → Five to eight

Go along in heed that using "later" for times is only standard in American English. In other English dialects, "past" is far more common.

5. Punctuating the Time

When writing the fourth dimension as numerals, you lot can utilise either a colon or a menstruation between the hour and the minutes. In some cases, such as in the military, you can fifty-fifty write out a 24-hour time without any punctuation.

For case, the post-obit are all acceptable means of punctuating a time:

We demand to go out past 6:45 pm at the latest. ✔

We need to leave past 6.45 pm at the latest. ✔

We demand to leave by 1845 at the latest. ✔

The colon is the near common selection here, only it is a matter of preference. Unless you're in the armed services, in which instance nosotros advise sticking to protocol.

half-dozen. Time Zones

For the contiguous states in the United states of america, we have iv standard time zones:

Pacific Fourth dimension (PT) [UTC-08:00]
Mountain Time (MT) [UTC-07:00]
Fundamental Time (CT) [UTC-06:00]
Eastern Time (ET) [UTC-v:00]

Nosotros also have regional time zones for Alaska, Hawaii, and 5 U.s.a. dependencies, plus daylight saving time in some places during the warmer months of the year. And people in other countries use different fourth dimension zones entirely!

Basically, we're saying geography can brand fourth dimension complicated.

This is why we sometimes include a time zone when writing the fourth dimension. The initials UTC higher up, for case, stand for Coordinated Universal Time. We can employ this to compare times in different places. So, "UTC-8:00" means Pacific Time is 8 hours behind UTC. And since nosotros know Pacific Time is 8 hours behind UTC and Eastern Time is 5 hours behind UTC, we can work out that ET is 3 hours alee of PT.

In other words, by including a time zone when we write a time, we tin can aid people in other places "translate" information technology into their ain time zone.

This is important if you are writing for an international audition, since not everyone will exist in the same time zone. You thus demand to include a fix of time zone initials so your reader tin calculate the equivalent time where they are. For example, if we were writing a fourth dimension for an international audience, we might say:

The live circulate will begin at 9:00 pm UTC.

Someone in Bolivia could then look up the difference between UTC and BOT (Bolivia Time) and know the broadcast begins at v:00 pm where they are.

7. Avoiding Redundancy when Writing the Fourth dimension

In writing, redundancy means using a give-and-take unnecessarily. We mentioned to a higher place, for example, that yous practise not need to use AM or PM with 24-60 minutes times because we already know whether a time is the morning or afternoon/evening when using a 24-60 minutes clock.

Other cases of temporal redundancy you may want to avoid include:

Using "in the morning time," "in the afternoon," etc., alongside AM/PM.
Combining "in the forenoon," "in the afternoon," etc., with a 24-hour time.
Using "midday," "noon," or "midnight" alongside a fourth dimension in numbers.

We'll end this mail service with a few examples of redundancies so you know what to scout out for. Check out the tabular array below, good luck writing the time, and let us know if you need whatsoever help proofreading your work.

Redundancy	Correction
The event ends at *17:00 PM* .	The event ends at *17:00* . The event ends at *5:00 PM* .
We leave at *6AM in the morning* .	We leave at *6AM* . We go out at *6:00 in the morning* .
He went to bed at *23:00 at dark* .	He went to bed at *23:00* . He went to bed at *11:00 at dark* .
I'll run into you at *twelve noon* .	I'll run across yous at *twelve* . I'll meet yous at *noon* . (N.B. 'Apex' is the amend correction here, since 'twelve' by itself could be either midday or midnight.)