Like names and dates, numbers are among the most basic facts The Times reports — and getting those facts right is the foundation of our journalism. Many errors, and many blows to The Times’s credibility, could be avoided if writers and editors took more care to make sure the numbers are right.

Sometimes a moment’s thought would be enough to save us from a mistake. In other cases, it may require double-checking our own calculations, or triple-checking our source material. Whatever it takes, it’s worth it.

Here are some recent corrections that could have been averted:

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An article on Saturday about the pending initial offering of the Chinese Internet company Alibaba misstated the amount of money its underwriting banks are expected to share if the stock sale prices at the high end. It is just over $200 million, not just over $2 billion.

This might not seem like an obvious error. But it apparently arose from hasty, faulty arithmetic — the story had all the information we needed. We said the target for the I.P.O. was $21.1 billion. Later, we said the banks stood to share in underwriting fees of 1 percent, which we added would be just over $2 billion. But, of course, $2 billion is 10 percent of $20 billion, not 1 percent.

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Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about the elimination of reduced-fat French fries in some Burger King outlets misstated the number of stores that decided to eliminate the item, called Satisfries. It is slightly fewer than 5,000, not about 7,500. The article also misstated the amount of sodium in Satisfries and regular fries. Satisfries have 300 milligrams of sodium, not 300 grams; regular fries have 480 milligrams, not 480 grams.

Perhaps our American aversion to the metric system was the root of this error; it, too, could have been avoided with a bit of mental arithmetic and a dash of common sense. Four hundred and eighty grams is almost half a kilogram (a kilogram being 1,000 grams). And a kilogram is about 2.2 pounds. So 480 grams would mean about a pound of salt in one order of fries.



Billions and Billions

The most frustrating numerical errors are the predictable ones — and no error is more predictable than confusing millions, billions and trillions. Every writer and every editor should pause and recheck every single time we use one of those words.

That might have saved us from these corrections in the last few months:

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An article last Thursday about Walmart’s move into primary health care clinics misstated the amount that Americans spend annually handling chronic illnesses. It is $1.7 trillion, not $1.7 billion. The error was repeated in a correction in this space on Tuesday.

Granted, the mind reels when it comes to trillions. But given the vastness of the American health care system, $1.7 billion for all spending on chronic illnesses is implausibly low. The reporter, the backfield editor and the copy editor all should have sought to double-check.

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An article on Wednesday about demands among both parties in Congress that the Obama administration allow a vote on any agreement with Iran on its nuclear weapons program misstated, in some editions, the value of assets that Iran will have access to under an agreement. It is more than $2 billion, not more than $2 million.

This, too, should have raised an immediate, “Huh?” Assets of $2 million would seem to be loose change in a context like this.

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An article on Tuesday about Pittsburgh International Airport’s plans to extract natural gas from deposits under its runways misstated the annual revenue of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which also has oil and gas wells on its property. It is $650 million, not $6 billion.

A trickier case, perhaps — $6 billion seems awfully high, but perhaps not impossibly so. But if we routinely double- and triple-checked anything involving millions or billions, we would have caught this.

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An article on Tuesday about the destruction of ash forests by emerald ash borers misstated the number of ash trees in wild forests in North America. It is eight billion, not million.

Here, too, the error may not be obvious on its face — most of us would struggle with even a ballpark guess at something like the number of ash trees on the whole continent. All the more reason to double-check every million and every billion. Obvious or not, a mistake like this is not wrong by just one letter — it’s wrong by a factor of 1,000.



In a Word

This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers. (Note: There were so many examples of singular/plural agreement problems that I put them aside for another dreary day.)

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With her awkward screen presence, her preoccupation with sex, her frank exploration of her own neuroses and, above all, her willingness to play the part of herself almost to the point of caricature, Dunham has ensured that her work be guided by her own persona, which in turn has been shaped by the twin forces of profound anxiety and exhaustive (though, again like Allen, somewhat roving and undisciplined) intellectual engagement.

Use the subjunctive after a verb suggesting a wish or a demand — “she has demanded that the show be guided by …” But in this case, simply use the indicative: “has ensured that her work is guided.” More broadly, the sentence is awfully convoluted and hard to read.

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Mr. Zoufaly made the first disquieting discovery: someone had used a desk stapler to bind the sides of the canvas to strips of Velcro.

The Times’s stylebook says to capitalize what follows a colon if it is a complete sentence.

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At least two statewide campaigns during the past year have used the new tool, “Custom Managed Audiences,” to reach Facebook users who are registered voters or political supporters.

A tool or an app, unlike a book or a symphony, does not take quotation marks.

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The rosier picture the hedge fund group can paint, the more likely their investments gain in value, as other investors step in to buy the bonds.

This construction required another article: “The rosier the picture the hedge fund group can paint …” Or rephrase.

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Not all are as scruffy as La Trinidad, which was aimed at poorer buyers, but they share an eerie, treeless quiet with little commerce, traffic or pedestrians.

“Little” works with commerce and traffic, but not with pedestrians. Make it “little commerce or traffic and few pedestrians.”

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But local military, police and government officials, including two Afghan generals, have said in recent days that they are unsure their forces can continue to hold out against the offensive, which has been underway since June in the Sangin district in northern Helmand and more recently in neighboring Musa Qala, unless they get more support from national authorities and international forces.

Another long and overstuffed sentence. Break it up.

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But he alternated between resolve as he vowed to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad if Syrian forces shot at American planes, and prickliness as he mocked critics of his more reticent approach to the exercise of American power.

“Reticent” means “disinclined to speak.” We frequently seem to confuse it with “reluctant” or “hesitant.”

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But as much as Mr. Balazs wants to appeal to the natives, the hotel and restaurant, helmed by the Michelin-starred chef Nuno Mendes, seem designed to cater to members of the creative classes who frequent his other hotels, and their stepped-up globe-trotting.

Ugh. Let’s avoid this P.R.-speak.

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[Home page summary] An investigation by The New York Times has found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration frequently has been slow to identify problems, tentative to act and reluctant to employ its full legal powers against companies.

We wanted three parallel phrases, but “tentative” doesn’t really work with an infinitive like this. Choose a different word — perhaps “hesitant” — or recast.

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When Lucky Strike hired him to persuade more women to smoke publicly, he learned that one reason women didn’t buy Lucky Strike cigarettes was because of the brand’s unappealing green packaging.

From the stylebook:

reason (n). Both because and why are built into the meaning of reason. So avoid the reason is because and the reason why. Write The reason is that the mayor got more votes and She found out the reason the mayor won. Usually a phrase like reason why the decision was made can be shortened to reason for the decision.

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You didn’t instruct him to drive 130 m.p.h., but you also didn’t tell him to slow down when you realized he was.

He “was” what? He was “to drive”? You can’t truncate a verb phrase like this unless the verb form that completes the thought (in this case, “driving”) has already been used in the sentence.

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The number of arrests by team range from a low of 11 (tie between the Arizona Cardinals and St. Louis Rams) versus a high of 44 (the Vikings) …

There was a 53 percent correlation between the number of a team’s players arrested between 2000 and 2006 and the number arrested with the same team from 2007 and 2013.

Two problems with ranges and prepositions. Make it “from … to” in both cases.

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A streamlined cross-body bag like this two-tone suede (in navy, pale gray, forest green and red-orange) and black pebble-leather style could have you looking forward to a busy weekend. Designed by Sarah Law of the young New York City label Kara, the bags are simple and tactile — and refreshingly affordable.

At $310, even many reasonably well-off Times readers might disagree with this description. We should take care not to aim at too narrow an audience.