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• Writing Tips

7 Top Tips on Writing the Time

7-minute read

• 25th July 2019

As anyone who has turned up for a midday meeting at midnight will tell you, clarity is vital when writing the time of day. But there are many ways to write the time, and the best approach isn’t always obvious. We have a few tips to help, though.

1. Words or Numerals?

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

For instance, all the following would be acceptable:

She gets up at six in the morning every day.

She gets up at 6:00 in the morning every day.

She gets up at 6 o’clock in the morning every day.

As a rule, though, you would only write out the time as words when:

• It is part of a full sentence, particularly in descriptive or literary writing.
• Using a 12-hour clock (never with a 24-hour clock ).
• You’re referring to an approximate or round time (e.g., saying “ten thirty” is fine, but you would not usually write “twenty-four minutes after eight”).

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

2. AM and PM

The abbreviations AM and PM can be used when writing the time as numerals. Each applies to a different time of day:

• AM is short for ante meridiem , meaning “before noon.”
• PM is short for post meridiem , meaning “after noon.”

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

You can see here that we need AM and PM with the twelve-hour clock for clarity. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between, e.g., midday and midnight. Likewise, though, you do not need to include AM or PM with a 24-hour time because it is already clear.

There are also several ways to write AM and PM, including:

• ALL CAPS, small caps , or lower case (e.g., 12 AM, 12 AM , or 12 am)
• With or without periods between the letters (e.g., 8 PM or 8 P.M.)
• With or without a space after the number (e.g., 1 AM or 1AM)

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

3. When to Use O’clock

You’ll have noticed we use “o’clock ” in one of the examples above. This term means “of the clock,” so we can use it to show that a number refers to a time.

However, you should only use “o’clock” with exact hours:

It is precisely 5 o’clock . ✔

I’m leaving at seven o’clock . ✔

It arrived at 7:34 o’clock . ✘

The gig starts at half past seven o’clock . ✘

We’ll save a discussion of when wine o’clock is for another blog post.

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4. Past, After, Till, and To

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

• Use after or past for intervals up to half an hour past the hour.
• Use to for any interval after the half hour up to the hour.
• Use half past to indicate 30 minutes past the hour.
• Use quarter past   or  quarter after for 15 minutes after the hour.
• Use quarter to for 15 minutes up to the hour.

For example, we would use the above accordingly in the following times:

7:05 → Five after seven

7:15 → Quarter past seven

7:30 → Half past seven

7:45 → Quarter to eight

7:55 → Five to eight

Keep in mind that using “after” for times is only standard in American English. In other English dialects, “past” is far more common.

5. Punctuating the Time

When writing the time as numerals, you can use either a colon or a period between the hour and the minutes. In some cases, such as in the military , you can even write out a 24-hour time without any punctuation.

For instance, the following are all acceptable ways of punctuating a time:

We need to leave by 6:45 pm at the latest. ✔

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

We need to leave by 1845 at the latest. ✔

The colon is the most common option here, but it is a matter of preference. Unless you’re in the military, in which case we suggest sticking to protocol.

6. Time Zones

For the contiguous states in the USA, we have four standard time zones:

• Pacific Time (PT) [UTC-08:00]
• Mountain Time (MT) [UTC-07:00]
• Central Time (CT) [UTC-06:00]
• Eastern Time (ET) [UTC-5:00]

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

Basically, we’re saying geography can make time complicated.

This is why we sometimes include a time zone when writing the time. The initials UTC above, for instance, stand for Coordinated Universal Time . We can use this to compare times in different places. So, “UTC-8:00” means Pacific Time is 8 hours behind UTC. And since we 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 ahead of PT.

In other words, by including a time zone when we write a time, we can help people in other places “translate” it into their own time zone.

This is important if you are writing for an international audience, since not everyone will be in the same time zone. You thus need to include a set of time zone initials so your reader can calculate the equivalent time where they are. For example, if we were writing a time for an international audience, we might say:

The live broadcast 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 5:00 pm where they are.

7. Avoiding Redundancy when Writing the Time

In writing, redundancy means using a word unnecessarily. We mentioned above, for example, that you do not need to use AM or PM with 24-hour times because we already know whether a time is the morning or afternoon/evening when using a 24-hour clock.

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

• Using “in the morning,” “in the afternoon,” etc., alongside AM/PM.
• Combining “in the morning,” “in the afternoon,” etc., with a 24-hour time.
• Using “midday,” “noon,” or “midnight” alongside a time in numbers.

We’ll end this post with a few examples of redundancies so you know what to watch out for. Check out the table below, good luck writing the time, and let us know if you need any help proofreading your work.

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Writing the Time: How to Write Time Correctly (Examples)

If you want to learn how to write time correctly, you've come to the right place. This article will teach you everything you know to use time correctly in your writing.

The time can be written in letters or numerals and follows various conventions. To learn more, read on.

This guide is part of our free online Grammar Book.

How to Write the Time in Numerals

Before you can learn how to write the time in your texts correctly, you need to know about the different ways of measuring time. There are two commonly used ones: the 12- hour and 24-hour formats. Let's review each one by one.

12-Hour System

The 12-hour system uses the numbers 1 to 12 to measure time and the abbreviations' am' and 'pm' to specify whether the time mentioned is in the morning or the afternoon. The hours from 1 to 12 before noon count as the morning, and the hours between 1 and 12 after noon count as... well, afternoon.

There are a few different ways to write the time using the 12-hour system. What they all have in common is that you begin by stating the number. You can then follow the number with the abbreviation 'am' or 'pm;' the phrase 'in the morning,' 'in the afternoon,' or 'at night,' or the word' o'clock.'

Here are some examples:

Let's have lunch at 11am. I need you in the office by 2 in the afternoon. In January it gets dark at 3pm.

In informal writing, it's okay to use just the number to mention the time ("Let's meet at 5.") as long as it's safe to assume the person will know whether you mean morning, afternoon, evening, or night .

• It's worth noting there are several different ways to write the abbreviations' am' and 'pm.' Some like to capitalize them; others keep them lowercase.
• Some use periods between the letters while others don't, and some leave a space after the number while others don't.

Here are some representations of the different ways this can look using the example time of 8 in the morning:

Some spellcheckers will even have you use a period after the first letter but not the second one. All these variations are correct, and which one you should use depends on the style guide you follow.

The main thing is to stay consistent.

24-Hour system

The 24- hour system uses—you guessed it—24 numbers to measure the time. The numbers 1 to 12 refer to the morning hours, while numbers 13 to 24 refer to the afternoon and evening hours. Due to the system's intricacy, you don't need to use phrases such as 'in the morning,' nor must you use 'am' or 'pm.'

They're expected to land at 13:45.  The screening begins at 20:00 but there'll be some trailers before that. I heard the meeting started at 8:00.

Notice I've used a colon between the hours and the minutes in the examples above. You can also use a period .

Top Tip! The military system also uses the 24-hour system but without the colon/period, followed by the word "hours." For example: Take off at 300 hours.

How to Write the Time in Letters

There are times you might want to write the time in letters. Like when? Well, like with all things, it's primarily up to you. Just make sure to remain consistent, whatever you choose to do.

Nonetheless, here are some guidelines you might decide to follow:

• Write the time in letters only when it won't burden the page. For instance, '7:25' is better than 'twenty-five past seven.' 'Eight' and '8:00' are equivalent.
• Never write 24-hour format time in letters.
• Use the words' noon' and 'midnight' over the numerals' 12 pm,' '12am,' '12:00,' or '24:00.' It's just more straightforward.
• With o'clock, you can use either numerals or words.
• When the time you're writing isn't on the hour, remember to use words such as 'past,' 'after,' 'til,' and 'to.'

Here are some examples to illustrate some of these guidelines:

My son's so lazy; he never gets up before noon. What do you think of meeting at five o'clock for cocktails? It's already half past one!

Concluding Thoughts

That concludes this article on how to write time correctly. I hope you found it helpful.

Let's summarize what we've learned:

• The time can be written in a 12-hour or 24-hour format.
• When writing the time in numerals, use words like 'am,' 'pm,' and the phrases 'in the morning,' 'in the afternoon,' or 'at night.' 
• 'O'clock' can be used with numerals or letters.
• You can choose to write the time in numerals or letters; just stay consistent.

If you found this article helpful, check out our Grammar Book . It's an online database of articles that break down complex grammar topics into easy-to-understand guides. You'll love it!

Learn More:

• How to Write Height Correctly - Writing Feet and Inches
• How to Write a List Correctly: Colons, Commas, and Semicolons
• Apostrophes: When to Use Apostrophes in Writing (Examples)
• Ellipses: When to Use Ellipses in Writing (Examples)
• Italics and Underlining: When to Use Italics and Underlining in Writing (Examples)
• ‘Restaurateur’ or ‘Restauranteur’: How to Spell It Correctly 
• ‘Goodmorning’ or ‘Good Morning’: How to Spell ‘Good Morning’ Correctly
• ‘Holliday’ or ‘Holiday’: How to Spell ‘Holiday’ Correctly
• ‘Colum’ or ‘Column’: How to Spell ‘Column’ Correctly
• ‘Absence’ or ‘Absense’: How to Spell ‘Absence’ Correctly
• ‘Eachother’ or ‘Each Other’: How to Spell ‘Each Other’ Correctly
• ‘Ninty’ or ‘Ninety’: How to Spell the Number ‘90’ Correctly
• ‘Nieve’ or ‘Naive’: How to Spell It Correctly
• ‘Wheelbarrel’ or ‘Wheelbarrow’: How to Spell It Correctly
• ‘Aswell’ or ‘As Well’: How to Spell it Correctly

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Essay Papers Writing Online

Best practices for including time references in your essay writing.

Time plays a crucial role in writing, adding depth and context to your ideas. However, properly conveying time in an essay requires attention to detail and consistency. Whether you are discussing historical events, comparing timelines, or simply narrating a sequence of events, the way you handle time can significantly impact the clarity and effectiveness of your writing.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore best practices for writing time in an essay, including how to format dates, express time intervals, and maintain chronological order. By mastering these techniques, you can enhance the precision and coherence of your writing, ensuring that your readers follow your argument with ease and understanding.

Using Consistent Time Format

When writing time in an essay, it is crucial to maintain consistent time format throughout your work. This consistency helps the reader to follow the timeline of events and understand the progression of time in your writing.

One of the key aspects of using consistent time format is to decide on the format you will use for representing time. You can choose between the 12-hour clock and the 24-hour clock, but make sure to stick to your choice throughout the entire essay.

Additionally, it is important to be consistent in how you punctuate and separate the elements of time. For example, if you choose to include the time of day, make sure to use the appropriate punctuation and separations, such as “7:30 AM” or “14:45.”

By using a consistent time format, you can enhance the readability and coherence of your essay, making it easier for the reader to follow the progression of events and time in your writing.

Avoiding Abbreviations in Time References

When writing about time in an essay, it’s important to avoid using abbreviations for time references. Abbreviations like “a.m.” and “p.m.” can sometimes be confusing to readers, especially those who are not familiar with these terms.

Instead of using abbreviations, it is better to write out the time references in full. For example, instead of writing “3 p.m.,” you can write “three o’clock in the afternoon.” This not only makes your writing clearer but also helps to avoid any confusion for your readers.

Additionally, when writing about specific times, it is best to use the 24-hour clock format to avoid any confusion. For example, instead of writing “6:30 p.m.,” you can write “18:30.”

Differentiating Between Time Zones

When writing about time in an essay, it is crucial to differentiate between different time zones to avoid confusion. Using the appropriate time zone is essential for clear communication and accuracy. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

1. Specify the Time Zone: Always specify the time zone when mentioning a particular time to provide clarity for your readers. For example, if you mention an event happening at 3:00 PM, specify whether it is in Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Pacific Standard Time (PST), or any other time zone.

2. Convert Time Zones: If you need to convert a time from one time zone to another, make sure to do so accurately. Use reliable sources or online converters to ensure the correct conversion. Double-check your calculations to avoid errors.

3. Be Consistent: When mentioning time zones throughout your essay, be consistent in your usage. Stick to one format and style to maintain coherence and avoid confusion for your readers.

4. Consider Your Audience: Take into account the location of your audience when mentioning time zones. If you have an international audience, consider using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as a reference point to provide a universal frame of reference.

By following these guidelines, you can effectively differentiate between time zones in your essay and ensure clarity and accuracy in your writing.

Integrating Time Markers Naturally

When incorporating time markers in your essay, it is essential to do so seamlessly and naturally. This means that you should avoid simply listing dates or times without any context or relevance to your discussion. Instead, strive to integrate time markers in a way that adds depth and clarity to your writing.

One effective way to integrate time markers naturally is to use them to provide context or establish a timeline for your argument. For example, you might use time markers to show the progression of events or to highlight the significance of a particular moment in history.

Additionally, consider using transitional phrases to smoothly introduce time markers into your writing. Phrases like “In the past,” “Throughout history,” or “In recent years,” can help connect your ideas and make the passage of time feel organic and fluid.

Overall, the key to integrating time markers naturally is to use them strategically and thoughtfully to enhance the coherence and flow of your essay. By carefully weaving time markers into your writing, you can provide readers with a clear sense of the temporal context of your argument and strengthen the overall impact of your work.

Clarifying AM and PM Notations

When writing time in an essay, it is important to clarify whether the time is in the morning (AM) or the afternoon/evening (PM). This distinction is crucial for readers to accurately interpret the time reference.

Here are some best practices for using AM and PM notations:

• Use “AM” to indicate times from midnight to noon.
• Use “PM” to indicate times from noon to midnight.
• Always include a space between the time and the AM or PM notation (e.g., 9:00 AM).
• When indicating noon, use “12:00 PM” to avoid confusion with midnight.
• Avoid using “12:00 AM” to represent midnight; instead, use “12:00 PM”.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure clarity and precision when writing time references in your essays.

Providing Context for Relative Time Expressions

When writing about time in an essay, it is important to provide context for relative time expressions. This helps the reader understand the timeline of events and creates a clear and coherent narrative. One way to provide context is to use transition words and phrases that indicate the order of events, such as “before,” “after,” “during,” and “while.”

Another way to provide context is to use specific dates, years, or time frames to anchor the relative time expressions. For example, instead of saying “recently” or “a long time ago,” specify the time period to give the reader a more concrete understanding of when the events occurred.

By providing context for relative time expressions, you can enhance the clarity and coherence of your writing, making it easier for readers to follow the timeline of events and understand the progression of your ideas.

Checking for Time Accuracy in Quotes

When including quotes in your essay that mention specific times or dates, it is important to ensure that the information is accurate. Misquoting or misrepresenting the time frame can discredit your writing and undermine the credibility of your argument.

Before finalizing a quote that includes time-related details, it is crucial to double-check the accuracy of the information. This can be done by cross-referencing the quote with reliable sources, such as the original text or a reputable publication.

Additionally, it is recommended to verify the context in which the time is mentioned and ensure that it aligns with the overall narrative of your essay. Incorrectly attributing a time frame to a quote can distort the meaning and lead to misinterpretations.

By diligently checking for time accuracy in quotes, you can maintain the integrity of your writing and effectively support your arguments with credible evidence.

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• Proofreading Tips

Writing the Time: AM and PM or a.m. and p.m.?

• May 14, 2020

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AM and PM are terms used when writing times. However, there are a few different ways to write them, which can be tricky when proofreading . Should you just aim for consistency? Or is there a correct way to do it in certain contexts? In this post, we explore:

• What the terms AM and PM mean.
• How to capitalize and punctuate AM and PM.
• When to add a space between the time and AM or PM.
• What the most well-known style guides recommend.

Read on and learn more about writing the time. 

What do these terms mean.

“AM” and “PM” are both abbreviations of Latin terms and refer to a specific time of day:

• AM ( ante meridiem ) means “before noon,” so it refers to the morning.
• PM ( post meridiem ) means “after noon,” so it refers to any time after midday.

When using a 12-hour clock , then, these terms clarify the time we have in mind (e.g., 12 AM is midnight, whereas 12 PM is midday). This is not necessary when using a 24-hour clock .

There are, however, a few options for how you write these terms, as we will explore below.

Capitalization of AM and PM

You may have noticed that we write “AM” and “PM” with capital letters in this post. For instance:

The performances today will be at 11 AM and 3 PM .

But that is not the only legitimate option! You can also write them with lowercase letters:

The performances today will be at 11 am and 3 pm .

Or you can write them with small caps . All are acceptable ways of writing these terms, so ultimately it comes down to preference or your client’s chosen style guide.

Punctuation of AM and PM

Another variation is adding periods between each letter in these terms. For instance:

The meeting ended at 11 a.m.

Did you see the 5:00 p.m. bulletin?

This is common when using lowercase letters, although some also add punctuation when using small caps. It would be unusual to punctuate these terms when using standard capital letters, though. Finally, keep in mind that you do not need an extra period after the abbreviation when punctuating a time like this at the end of a sentence.

Spacing AM and PM

The final variation you will see with these terms is whether to add a space between the time and AM/PM. In the examples so far, we have added this space, as it is more common to do so.

However, when using the unpunctuated forms of these terms, you can close the gap. This does not apply when using the punctuated forms, so take care not to mix up these styles:

Spaced and Unpunctuated: I have a class at 2 PM today. ✓

Unspaced and Unpunctuated: I have a class at 2PM today. ✓

Spaced and Punctuated: You need to be there by 9:00 a.m. ✓

Unspaced and Punctuated: You need to be there by 9:00a.m. ✗

As with the other options here, the space before AM and PM is largely a matter of preference.

What Do Style Guides Recommend?

As you can see, there are many options available when writing these terms. And as a proofreader, your main priority will be to ensure your client uses a consistent style. However, if your client is using a style guide , too, you can check it for advice.

Some well-known style guides suggest the following:

To learn more about proofreading for style, give our Becoming A Proofreader course a try.

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The Editor’s Manual

Free learning resource on English grammar, punctuation, usage, and style.

• Abbreviations

How to Use AM and PM

Follow these generally accepted guidelines to use a.m. and p.m. (or AM and PM ) correctly in formal writing:

• Use the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. to indicate exact time.
• Use a.m. to refer to a time of day before noon, and p.m. to speak of a time between noon and midnight.
• Use numerals or figures instead of words to denote time with a.m. and p.m. ( eleven / 8 a.m. ) in formal texts.
• Although both hours and minutes are often presented in formal or official documents, specifying the minutes is optional for whole hours ( 8 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. ).
• In running text, a.m. and p.m. are usually lowercased with periods after the letters of the abbreviations; however, they may also be capitalized ( 8:01 a.m. or 8:01 AM ).
• Avoid using expressions of time like “in the morning” and “at night” with a.m. and p.m. ( 8 a.m. in the morning ).
• Use the words noon and midnight instead of 12 p.m. or 12 a.m.

What do a.m. and p.m. mean?

The abbreviation a.m. , which comes from the Latin ante meridiem ( before midday ), designates the first 12-hour period of the day. The second half of the day takes the abbreviation p.m. , from post meridiem ( after midday ).

• Tumkin wakes up at 6 a.m. everyday. in the morning (before noon)
• The staff break for lunch at 1:15 p.m. in the afternoon (after midday)

When to use and how to write a.m. and p.m. is a matter of style rather than grammar . Discussed here are commonly accepted guidelines.

When to use

Use the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. to emphasize exact time . Specifying the exact time is preferred in formal contexts, such as in official communication.

• Please be present at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
• All goods must leave the warehouse by 2 p.m.
• The deadline to submit the application has been extended to 4:45 p.m.
• The doctor is available from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.

When the exact time is not important, and in informal contexts, such as in everyday speech, the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. are often omitted. In particular, when it is clear which half of the day is being referred to, using these abbreviations may sound unnecessarily formal. Speakers then use phrases like o’clock , half past , and a quarter past , or simply the numbers for time.

• It’s eleven o’clock , and I still haven’t finished my report. Presumably, the listener knows whether the speaker is referring to eleven in the morning or the evening.
• I’ll be done by half past ten .
• We break for lunch at a quarter past one .
• I’ll be there by 2:30 .
• They work from nine to six every day.

Numerals or words?

With the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. , always use numerals or figures instead of words to denote time in formal writing.

• The bell rang at 1 p.m.
• The conference began at 11:30 a.m.
• We have a meeting at 4 p.m. today.
• Please submit your applications by 10 a.m. on Monday.

To show approximate rather than exact time, you may omit a.m. or p.m. , and use words instead of numerals.

• We worked from one to three thirty in the afternoon.

In informal and creative writing, words are often used instead of numerals to show the time.

• Informal: It was just three p.m. but dark outside. Formal: Submit your reports by 3 p.m.
• Informal: We left the coroner’s office at nine PM . Formal: The coroner’s report arrived at 9 PM .

Hours and minutes

In a time reference using a.m. or p.m. , always indicate the hour. Showing minutes is optional. Where exact time is important, such as in official, academic, and technical writing, prefer to show both hours and minutes.

• Class starts at 10 a.m. / 10:00 a.m.
• Class is from 10 to 11 a.m. / 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.
• Anita works from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. / 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

If you show minutes for one time reference, show them for all references in that context.

• Poor: Class is from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Better: Class is from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Poor: I’m busy from 2 to 4:00 p.m. today. Better: I’m busy from 2 to 4 p.m. today.

Use of periods and capitals

In general, use lowercase letters with periods after the letters of the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. , particularly in running text. These abbreviations are sometimes capitalized —for example, in signs and notices. The periods are then omitted.

• Our ship sails at 3:15 p.m. on Thursday.
• The local coffee shop is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day.
• Open: 7 AM to 9 PM sign outside a coffee shop

Most style manuals , like the Chicago Manual of Style , the AP Stylebook , and the APA Publication Manual , recommend using lowercase letters for a.m. and p.m. , with periods between the letters of these abbreviations.

If a.m. or p.m. appears at the end of a sentence, don’t use two consecutive periods . Use the same period to mark both the abbreviation and the end of the sentence.

• Incorrect: All the clocks stopped at 12:33 a.m.. Correct: All the clocks stopped at 12:33 a.m.

If you do capitalize these abbreviations in running text, prefer to use small capital letters (small caps).

• Our space shuttle leaves at 3:15 PM on Thursday.
• My phone is switched off from 6 PM Friday to 8 AM Monday.

In British usage , periods are sometimes omitted in lowercase abbreviations: Colin drinks tea at 4 pm every day.

Space before AM and PM

Always insert a space after the numerals used to denote the time, regardless of whether you lowercase or capitalize the abbreviations a.m. and p.m.

• From 2 to 3 a.m. every day, Poco practices playing the guitar.
• The Durandians landed in Farley’s garden at 8:33 a.m. last Monday.
• Let’s meet at 9:30 AM on Monday.
• Matinee: 12:30 PM

Noon and midnight

Noon is neither a.m. nor p.m. , since “a.m.” refers to times before noon and “p.m.” to those after. Simply use the words noon and midnight instead of 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. Not only is this correct, it is also less confusing.

• Incorrect: It started raining at 12 p.m. Correct: It started raining at noon .
• Incorrect: All the alarms went off together at 12 a.m. Correct: All the alarms went off together at midnight .

Placing the numeral 12 before noon or midnight is redundant (the time is always 12 on the clock at noon and midnight). Although such usage is common in speech, avoid it in writing.

• It was 12 midnight , but our work wasn’t over yet.
• Measure the length of the shadow at 12 noon .

Expressions of time

Since a.m. and p.m. clearly indicate which part of the day is being referred to, expressions of time like in the morning , this afternoon , and tonight are unnecessary with these time abbreviations. Although such expressions are common in speech, avoid using them with a.m. / p.m. in formal writing.

• Poor: Tumkin’s flight is at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon . Better: Tumkin’s flight is at 2 p.m. on Sunday .

Consistency in usage

While writing time of day, don’t mix styles within a single context. Stay consistent in usage with relation to a.m. / p.m. , numerals, and hours and minutes.

• Poor: The bus leaves Butterworth at 9:30 a.m. and reaches Melaka at 4 o’clock . Better: The bus leaves Butterworth at 9:30 a.m. and reaches Melaka at 4:00 p.m. Better: The bus leaves Butterworth at half past nine in the morning and reaches Melaka at four in the afternoon .
• Poor: Farley slept at 1:00 a.m. and woke up at six . Better: Farley slept at 1 a.m. and woke up at 6 a.m. Better: Farley slept at 1:00 a.m. and woke up at 6:00 a.m. Better: Farley slept at one and woke up at six .

Considerations of formality

In formal texts , prefer to use a.m. and p.m. with numerals for time. In informal usage, such as in speech and creative writing, using words can sound more natural.

• Formal: The first shift is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Informal: I work from nine to five on weekdays.
• Formal: Departure is at 11:25 a.m. Informal: We leave at eleven twenty-five .
• Formal: The meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. Informal: Is it half past ten already?

In scientific writing, the 24-hour system of time is often used instead of the 12-hour system. On the 24-hour clock, the day is represented by a single 24-hour period instead of two 12-hour periods: 6 a.m. is 06:00, and 6 p.m. is 18:00.

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Use a.m. and p.m. to express and emphasize exact time.

With a.m. and p.m. , use numerals instead of words in formal texts.

Place a period after the letters of the lowercase abbreviations a.m. and p.m.

Expressions of time like in the morning are redundant with a.m. and p.m.

Noon is neither a.m. nor p.m. Simply use the words noon or midnight to refer to 12 on the clock.

Use a consistent style, either words or numerals, to refer to time. In formal and official writing, numerals with a.m. and p.m. are preferred.

Essays About Time: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

Essays about time involve looking into human existence and other intangible concepts. Check out our top examples and prompts to write an engaging piece about this subject.

Time entails many concepts that can be hard to explain. In its simplest sense, time is the period between the past, present, and future. It also encompasses every action or progression of events within those measures. Time never stops. It consistently ticks away, making it both a cruel teacher and an apt healer. It inspires many writers to write pieces about it, discussing time as a notion or an element in emotionally-driven compositions that both describe euphoric and heart-rending episodes. 

To aid you in writing a compelling piece, below are our top picks for great essays about time:

1. Time is Precious Essay by Anonymous on AreSearchGuide.com

2. an essay on time by david pincus, 3. time is money by supriya, 4. time waster by anonymous on exampleessays.com, 5. time management: using the less time to do more by anonymous on edubirdie.com, 1. how i spend my time, 2. what is time, 3. time and technology, 4. time management and procrastination, 5. if time doesn’t exist, 6. time as a currency, 7. the value of time, 8. time and productivity.

“Make most of your time and you will be rewarded ten folds of it, waste it and the little you have will be taken away, just like in the parable of talents.”

The essay begins with a convincing statement reminding the readers of the average life expectancy of a person to assert the importance of time. Then, in the later sections, the author answers why time is precious. Some reasons include time is always in motion, is priceless, and can never be borrowed. The piece also mentions why many “wait for the right opportunity,” not realizing they must plan first to get to the “right time.” Finally, at the end of the essay, the writer reminds us that balancing and planning how to spend time in all areas of life are critical to having a meaningful existence.

“I don’t know what time is, beyond a mysterious self-similar backdrop upon which we lead our lives. It is intricately woven across the scales of observation – from the quantum level to the phenomenological time of cultural revolutions.”

Pincus begins the essay with questions about time and then proceeds to answer them. Then, he focuses on time psychologically, relating it to traumas, disorders, and lack of meaning. In the next section, he discusses how psychotherapists use the concept of time to treat patients. 

In the last part of his essay, Pincus admits that he doesn’t know what time is but notes it’s akin to a thread that stitches moments together and anchors us through a complex world.

“Knowing how precious time is, we should never waste time, but make good use of it.”

Supriya’s essay is straightforward. After claiming that someone’s success depends on how they use their time, she gives an example of a student who studied well and passed an exam quickly. She follows it with more examples, referring to office workers and the famous and wealthy.

“Time is something you can’t have back, and should not be used to simply watch a computer screen for hours upon end.”

The writer shares one of his vices that leads him to waste time – technology, specifically, instant messaging. They mention how unproductive it is to just stare at a computer screen to wait for their friends to go online. They know many others have the same problem and hope to overcome the bad habit soon.

“I should strive for good time management skills which are essential to be learned and mastered in order to have a better personal and professional life… it can also help us learn more about self-discipline which is a crucial pillar for stable success… time management is a concept of balance and moderation of the things that are important to us.”

The essay affirms people need to protect time, as it’s a non-renewable resource. A great way to do it is by tracking your time, also known as time management. The writer shared their experience when they were a college student and how challenging it was to allocate their time between deadlines and other life demands. The following parts of the piece explain what time management is in detail, even recommending a tool to help individuals label their activities based on urgency. The following paragraphs focus on what the author learned about time management throughout their life and how they missed opportunities while continuously being stressed. Then, the last part of the essay suggests tips to conquer time management problems. 

Did you know that readability is critical to readers finishing your whole essay? See our article on how to improve your readability score to learn more. 

8 Writing Prompts For Essays About Time

Go through our recommended prompts on essays about time for writing:

In this essay, share how you use your time on a typical day. Then, decide if you want to keep spending your time doing the same things in the future. If not, tell your readers the reason. For instance, if you’re devoting most of your time studying now, you can say that you intend to use your future time doing other invaluable things, such as working hard to help your family.

Because there are many definitions of time, use this essay to define your interpretation of time. You can use creative writing and personify time to make your essay easy to understand. For example, you can think of time as a personal tutor who always reminds you of the things you should be able to finish within the day. For an engaging essay, use descriptive language to emphasize your points.

List technologies that help people save time, such as smartphones, computers, and the internet. Delve into how these devices help individuals complete their tasks faster. On the other hand, you can also talk about how modernization negatively affects people’s time management. Like when they distract students and workers from completing their assignments.

Discuss reasons why people procrastinate. First, ensure to pick common causes so your readers can easily relate to your piece. Then, add tips on how individuals can battle dilly-dallying by recommending influential time management theories and models. You can even try some of these theories or models and tell your readers how they worked for you. 

Open a discussion about what can happen if there is no concept of time. Include what matters you think will be affected if time is abolished. You can also debate that time does not exist, that it’s just created by people to keep track of whatever they need to monitor. Finally, add your thoughts on the notion that “we only exist within an ever-changing now.”

Share your ideas of what can take place if we use “time” to buy food, pay rent, etc. You can also analyze that when we use our time to work, get paid for it, and then purchase our necessities, we’re technically exchanging our time to be able to buy what we need. A movie that used this theory is In Time , starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, and Cillian Murphy. You can write a review of this movie and add your opinions on it.

Everyone’s aware of the importance of time. For this prompt, delve into why time is precious. Write this essay from your perspective and probe how time, such as managing or wasting it, affects your life. You can also interpret this prompt by calculating the non-monetary or opportunity costs of spending time. 

Examine the direct relationship between time and productivity. Then, list productivity strategies schools and businesses use. You can also open a discourse about the number of hours workers are supposed to work in a week. For example, debate if you think a 40-hour full-time work week in America, results in more productive employees. Then, add other schedules from other countries and how it affects productivity, such as Denmark, Germany, and Norway, with less than 30 hours of the work week. 

Do you want to know how to convince your readers effectively? Read our guide on how to write an argumentative essay . Improve your writing skills; check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .

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Do I spell out a time in an essay?

When I am writing an essay, do I spell out times? How would I write AM or PM?

How would I write that?

• orthography

6 Answers 6

The latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style recommends am and pm , with or without periods. They used to be set in small caps, but that's falling out of favour. You shouldn't use these abbreviations with the words morning, afternoon, evening, night, or o’clock.

There is no need to spell out times in an essay, although you might in creative writing or prose.

The important thing is to pick a convention, and be consistent.

According to an article on About.com :

Dates, phone numbers, and time: Use numbers for dates: My birthday is March 16. He was born on Valentines Day, 1975. And use numbers for phone numbers: The phone number for the school is 800-555-6262 And use numbers for time if using a.m. or p.m.: The alarm will sound at 7 p.m. I make my bed at 7 a.m. each morning. But spell out times when using "o'clock" or when the a.m. or p.m. are omitted: The alarm will sound at seven o'clock. I make my bed at seven each morning.

Several conventions exist to abbreviate ante meridiem and post meridiem - with or without periods and with capital or small letters.

11 am, 11 a.m., 11 AM, 11 A.M.

The choice is made based on regional or typographical factors.

"[...] departs at 10:48 P.M." is written in William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White's The Elements of Style .

The correct way to write a precise time when using the acronym of Ante or Post Meridiem is AM or PM in professional writing.

Sources: Common Errors in English Usage The time stamp on your email, mobile phone, digital clock, Microsoft Windows, etc.

• First and foremost let me say "Welcome to EUL." It is a fun place. Or maybe it is a place to have fun. Hey, if it is anything it is a place to talk about whether one should use the word 'fun' as an adjective. Regarding your answer, you are wrong. Of course, you were doomed to err when you answered the question. The correct answer depends on the style the original poster has chosen to adopt. What about the "other" MLA? mlanet.org/publications/style/style_numbers.html And why did your answer not address the previous answers? –  Michael Owen Sartin Commented Dec 15, 2013 at 15:57

“A quarter of/to/till midnight”

“Eleven forty-five in the evening”

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged orthography time or ask your own question .

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• How to Manage Your Time in an Exam: 10 Expert Tips

About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg.

Of all the odious things about doing exams (and I can think of an awful lot of them), two parts of the experience, in my opinion, vie for the title of most unpleasant.

The first is Achey Hand: that feeling, an hour or so in to any essay paper, that your poor, sore hand is probably crippled forever, and cannot possibly write one single more word without the attention of a doctor with a special qualification in muscle exhaustion. The blistered lump on your middle finger, meanwhile, is probably beyond all help. The second is the feeling of unmediated horror that will overcome most of us, at one point or another, upon realising that something has gone very wrong . Whether it’s answering too few questions or the wrong questions; or simply misreading the question you did answer – this is perhaps the most toe-curlingly horrid experience one can undergo in an exam. And of course, there are plenty of lesser evils in second, third and fourth places, like: the girl in front of you with the stress-induced nosebleed ( please !); the realisation, five minutes before the end, that you could probably have done a better job of 5b than 5a; the invigilator who catches you trying to squish in a last sentence after the exam’s over.

Unless you’re a mad adrenaline addict, you probably won’t enjoy exams. That’s a fact. They’re simply not fun . Perhaps the actual-getting-it-over-with is a bit better than the weeks of flash cards, past papers, and essay plans that precede; and starting on the last question of the last paper, your freedom only a glimmer away, is one of the best feelings ever; but, to me, most of the other parts of the process seem designed specifically to terrify and enrage. And of course, paradoxically, the reason they can be so unpleasant is that they’re often incredibly important; a two, or three-hour time-slot that might be your only chance to show off everything you’ve learned over the past few years. The most successful students might get in a pickle about exams, just like the rest of us; they might dread them for weeks, and have days where they feel like doing anything but revision – but often, they see the task in a more practical light. Exams are fundamentally a test of your ability to make the most of the time available to show off as much as possible, and collect all the points you can. The key to nailing them is of course to know your stuff beforehand – but it’s just as much about working efficiently and in an organised way; staying cool and calm to avoid silly mistakes; having a system that makes you feel confident and stops you from panicking. Here, we’ve gathered some tips for doing just that.

Before the exam

1. know what you’re up against before you go in.

At school, I often felt like the teachers must think we were all incredibly dim, so often did they repeat phrases like ‘THREE QUESTIONS. You must answer THREE QUESTIONS. ONLY THREE! BUT NO LESS THAN THREE. Have you all got that?!’ Er… yeah! We’ve been going through past papers for three whole months. I think we all know by now how many questions we’ve got to answer… But I was wrong. In his History I.B. exam, a boy in my year who seemed to get top marks at everything he did only answered two questions. Having stressed himself out completely, and stayed up late revising the night before, he’d misread the front of the paper, and against all common sense thought the format must have changed. Now, this was clearly the direct result of nerves, and a desire to start writing quickly in order to make the most of the time available – but because of this mistake, he missed out on the grade he deserved and wanted. And someone will do this in almost every paper – I’ve done it twice, and most people I know have done something like it at least once. It seems silly, but the way to avoid it is to make sure you know exactly what you’ve got to do before you go into the exam room – it’s very unlikely that the format will change without you being told, so alarm bells should ring if the paper doesn’t look like what you expected. If you were expecting three questions and it looks like you’ve only got to do two, take a deep breath, read the instructions again – maybe even check with the invigilator – and don’t leap in without being absolutely sure of what to do.

2. Practise writing quickly

If you don’t do practice papers before an exam, you might be surprised at how difficult it is to write quickly and legibly. Messy handwriting is a very good way to annoy the person marking your paper before they’ve even started; but equally, you don’t want to undersell yourself by not finishing your answer. This might sound like overkill, but pens make a huge difference: I find I can scrawl a lot quicker with an ink pen than a biro, because I don’t have to press down on the page. Do a past paper a few days before and time it really strictly – work out a way to write quickly and neatly so that you don’t waste your first exam cracking this.

3. Be realistic

Know before you go into the exam what sort of answers you can realistically write in the time you’ve got. If you’ve got 45 minutes for an essay question, does that mean you can fit in an introduction, three main points and a conclusion? Know the amount of detail and sophistication you’ve got time for. Don’t make the mistake of setting the scope of an answer too wide, and then not being able to finish it – something concise and complete will read much better than something broadly conceived and unfinished.

In the exam: keeping on top of things

4. first: read every question carefully.

In most exams these days, you’ll have to select to answer one or two from a range of questions. Before you leap in, take a deep breath and read every question carefully. Don’t skim-read, and don’t dismiss an option before thinking about it for at least a few seconds. Examiners have a nasty habit of dressing simple questions up in bewildering language: don’t miss a gem because it’s been confusingly-worded. Similarly, once you’ve chosen a question: MAKE SURE YOU READ IT PROPERLY. A bit like doing too many or too few questions, misreading a question (especially a long answer one) can result in you missing out on marks that you deserve to get. No matter how brilliant, inspired, or interesting an answer is, if it answers the wrong question, it’ll probably be a disaster. Make sure you avoid a nightmare by reading everything carefully.

5. Divide your time up

Before an exam, when you’re double- and triple-checking how many and what sort of questions you’ve got to do, make a plan of how long you’re going to spend on each thing – and then make sure you stick to it . Students who do well in exams always know how they’re going to approach a paper, and how to portion out their time so that they don’t run out.

How you structure your time will of course vary according to the way you work, and the sorts of questions you’ve got to answer. Start by working out what carries the most marks, and how long you’re going to need to get those marks: if you’ve got to do three essays and thirty short answer questions in the space of two hours, you don’t want to spend ages on a difficult short question at the expense of the essays. When you’re planning how to spend your time, make sure you assign some time at the beginning for planning, and at the end to check and finish things off. If I’ve got to write three essays in a three-hour exam, I spend fifteen minutes at the beginning reading the paper and jotting down three short plans, and then fifty minutes writing each, with fifteen minutes at the end to read and check. However, I know people who find it much easier to launch in immediately and write the bodies of their essays in forty-five minutes each, and then leave a few blank pages at the end of each essay to come back in the last forty-five minutes and write three conclusions. Before the exam, try a few different ways of answering and find out what works best. Crucially, whatever your plan is, you must stick to it religiously. If you know you’ve got twenty minutes each for three answers, DO NOT, whatever you do, let yourself spend twenty-five minutes on the first. It’s always incredibly tempting to give yourself just another few minutes to try and squeeze one last point into your conclusion, but have the discipline to resist, because a rushed final answer will probably do more damage than an excellent first one can make up for. If you’re really tempted to spend a little more time than you’re allowed on a question, leave a blank page after your answer, and determine to come back to it at the end if you can.

6. Start with something you can really do

Some people like to launch straight into the hard stuff: to get a question they’ve been dreading out of the way, knocked on the head, leaving lots of time at the end to do everything else at a more leisurely pace. I like to start strong: with a favourite topic, or a question I know I can nail – doing something like that early, I find, makes me feel confident – I can do this . I also tend to leave the questions I’m dreading most until the end, and allot a little more time to attempt them: getting everything else out of the way so that I can concentrate on my nightmare question. This is very subjective, though: again, it’s all about experimenting before the exam to find a method that suits you best.

7. Plan long answers

As I’m sure you’ve been told a million times before, plan your long answers or essay questions, because this will enable you to write quickly and confidently, and construct better answers. But remember, your plan won’t get marked. I don’t hold with this idea that you should spend half, or even a third of your time planning – use all the time possible on actually writing , to show off how well you can express your thoughts. Frequently, new ideas occur to you as you write, that you’d never have thought of while planning. Don’t spend ages deciding exactly what you’re going to say at the expense of actually having time to say it.

8. And if disaster strikes…

If you go totally blank and find you can’t answer something, realise you’ve answered the wrong number of questions, or discover you’ve misread the question, do not panic. Quickly write down what you’ve done in your script, so that the examiner can see what’s happened, and then use the remaining time to write a new, or alternative answer in bullet-points. Get in as much information as you can; hopefully, whoever marks the paper will be sympathetic and realise that this sort of thing can happen to anyone. If you can show them that you’ve realised the problem and tried to correct your error, and that you do know your stuff, they’ll most likely be kind, and try to give you as many marks as they can.

Other bits ‘n bobs

9. ask for new scripts before you need them.

If you’re a cramming-it-all-in, mad-hurry, writing-at-the-speed-of-light sort of person, it can be incredibly frustrating waiting for the invigilator to shuffle their way over to you with more paper. If you know you’re going to need more paper in a few minutes’ time, stick your hand up while you keep writing; not only will it save you precious minutes, but stop that feeling of panic when you think the invigilator, moving at a snail’s pace and seemingly almost blind, is never going to notice your sweaty, anxiously-waving hand.

10. Don’t leave early

The temptation to leave an exam early (especially if it’s your last one, or you’ve got another later on the same day) can be almost irresistible: freedom, and an escape from the palpable tension of the exam hall. But whatever you do, resist. Sit and re-read what you’ve written; double-check all of your answers; check your spelling and rewrite any illegible, hastily-scrawled words. Twenty minutes hanging about outside the exam room, waiting for your friends to finish, or in the library preparing for the next one, are fairly inconsequential, but you can guarantee that if you leave early, you’ll immediately realise you’ve missed something important or done something catastrophically wrong. Your two hours are precious! You’ll never get it back, but you will have endless time to waste after you’re done.

Essay On Time for Students and Children

500+ words essay on time.

Essay On Time – Time is very precious and we should not waste it in any way. Likewise, we can earn the money we spent but we cannot get back the time we have lost. So, this makes the time more valuable than money. Hence, we should utilize the time in the most possible way.

Importance of Time

This the most valuable and precious thing in the world. Also, we should use it for our good as well as for the good of others around us. This will help us and the society to progress towards a better tomorrow. Moreover, we should teach our children the importance and value of time. Also, wasting time will only lead you to cause an issue to you and the people around you.

Effective Utilization of Time

For effectively utilizing the time we must consider some points which will help us in our whole life. This utilization includes setting goals, prepare work lists, prioritize task, and take adequate sleep and various others.

For effectively utilizing time set long and short term goals these goals will help you in remaining productive. Moreover, they will prove as a driving force that will keep you motivated. Also, this will give the willingness to achieve something in life.

In the beginning, it will feel like a boring task but when you do it regularly then you will realize that that it only helps you to increase your productivity. Ultimately, this will force you to achieve more in life.

Prioritizing task is a very effective way of managing time. Also, because of it, you will know the importance of various task and jobs. Apart from that, if your club and perform a similar activity in a go then it also increases your productivity. Hence, it will help you to achieve more in life.

Being productive does not mean that you engage yourself in different tasks every time. Taking proper sleep and exercising is also part of being productive. Besides, proper exercise and sleep maintain a balance between body and mind which is very important for being productive and efficient.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Value of Time

Although most people do not understand how valuable time is until they lost it. Besides, there are people in the world who prioritize money over time because according to them, time is nothing. But, they do not realize the fact that it is time that has given them the opportunity to earn money. Apart from this, the time has given us prosperity and happiness and on the contrary, it has also given us sorrow and grief.

Power of Time

In previous time many kings proclaim themselves as the ruler of their age and all. But, they forget that they have limited time. Time is the only thing in the world that is limitless. Time can make you a king or a beggar in a movement of seconds.

In conclusion, we can say that time is the greatest gift of God. Moreover, there is a saying that “if you waste time, time will waste you.” Only this line is enough to justify how important and valuable time is.

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IELTS SPEAKING PART 1: EVENING TIME [ANSWERS]

EVENING TIME 

Are you more active in the morning or in the evening?  

(Answer 1) 

I believe I’m more active in the morning. That is simply because I’m a morning person. I can work efficiently during the day since I’m more energized. I once worked on a graveyard shift and I noticed that I wasn’t as effective as during the day. Since then, I decided to choose a job that’s 9-5.   

Obviously, as I’m a night owl (a person who is habitually active at night) , I’m very active in the evening or during the night. Ever since I started working, I usually report to work either in the afternoon or in the evening. I dunno but I can focus on working more during a graveyard shift, that’s when everyone is sleeping. I think that’s because the ambiance (atmosphere) is calming.   

What do you usually do in the evening?  

Aside from the fact that I sleep, I actually meditate before hitting the hay (going to bed) .  Meditating helps me think clearly and at the same time improves my physical being. Actually, I’ve been doing this since last year and I couldn’t be happier (be very happy) . 

(Answer 2) Well, nothing special, I’ve been doing what common people are doing during the night, and that’s watching a movie or TV series. This is my way of relieving stress after working for hours in the office. This has been my habit since I started working.     

What did you enjoy doing in the evening when you were little? 

Well, I enjoyed playing Nintendo games. I had fun playing Super Mario and my brother and I usually got into a fight (to engage in a verbal or physical altercation) because I didn’t like giving him a chance to play with me. I was kinda selfish back then. Remembering those days makes me miss my childhood.   

I didn’t do a lot of activities at night when I was a kid except for watching my favorite cartoon after doing my homework. I spent an hour watching TV since my parents allowed me to do so as long as I completed my homework. So, it was my way of making myself relaxed after a long day at school.  

Are there any differences between what you do in the evening now and what you did in the past?  

Yes! Compared to last year, I’m now more relaxed. Last year, I was completely busy even during the night because I was working on a very important project, as a result, I needed to give up exercising and I couldn’t do one of my hobbies which is watching movies or TV series. Currently, I can do all those things and meditation has been added.   

Of course! Since I was a student back then, most of my time during the night was spent studying or doing some school projects. However, these days, I have more time to relax at night. I can go to the park at night and jog or I can stay at home and be a couch potato (an inactive person) before hitting the sack (going to bed) .     

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• Writing Tips

7 Top Tips on Writing the Time

7-minute read

• 25th July 2019

As anyone who has turned up for a midday meeting at midnight will tell you, clarity is vital when writing the time of day. But there are many ways to write the time, and the best approach isn’t always obvious. So to help out, we’ve prepared this guide to putting the time down on paper.

1. Words or Numerals?

When writing the time of day, you can use either words or numerals. If you are using numerals, you would usually include both hours and minutes, although you can omit the minutes in less formal writing .

For instance, all the following would be acceptable:

She gets up at six in the morning every day.

She gets up at 6:00 in the morning every day.

She gets up at 6 o’clock in the morning every day.

As a rule, though, you would only write out the time as words when:

• It is part of a full sentence, particularly in descriptive or literary writing.
• Using a 12-hour clock (never with a 24-hour clock ).
• You are referring to an approximate or round time (e.g. saying ‘ten thirty’ is fine, but it would be unusual to write out ‘twenty-four minutes past eight’).

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

2. AM and PM

The abbreviations AM and PM can be used when writing the time as numerals. Each applies to a different time of day:

• AM is short for ante meridiem , meaning ‘before noon’.
• PM is short for post meridiem , meaning ‘after noon’.

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

You can see here that we need AM and PM with the twelve-hour clock for clarity. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between, e.g., midday and midnight. Likewise, though, you do not need to include AM or PM with a 24-hour time because it is already clear.

There are also several ways to write AM and PM, including:

• ALL CAPS, small caps , or lower case (e.g. 12 AM or 12 am)
• With or without full stops between the letters (e.g. 8 PM or 8 P.M.)
• With or without a space after the number (e.g. 1 AM or 1AM)

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

3. When to Use O’clock

You’ll have noticed we use ‘o’clock’ in one of the examples above. This term means ‘of the clock’, so we can use it to show that a number refers to a time.

However, you should only use ‘o’clock’ with exact hours:

It is precisely 5 o’clock . ✔

I’m leaving at seven o’clock . ✔

It arrived at 7:34 o’clock . ✘

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The gig starts at half seven o’clock . ✘

We’ll save a discussion of when wine o’clock is for another blog post.

4. Past and To

When writing the time as words, use ‘past’ and ‘to’ for intervals between hours. You can combine these terms with either numbers or the words ‘half’ and ‘quarter’ depending on the time in question:

• Use past for any interval up to and including half an hour past the hour.
• Use to for any interval after the half hour up to the hour.
• Use half past to indicate 30 minutes past the hour.
• Use quarter past and quarter to for 15-minutes either side of the hour.

For instance, we would use ‘past’ and ‘to’ accordingly in the following times:

7:05 → Five past seven

7:15 → Quarter past seven

7:30 → Half past seven

7:45 → Quarter to eight

7:55 → Five to eight

In less formal writing, you can even omit the ‘past’ in ‘half past’. So, for example, we could refer to the time 7:30 as ‘half seven’.

5. Punctuating the Time

When writing the time as numerals, you can use either a colon or a full stop between the hour and the minutes. In some cases, such as in the military , you can even write out a 24-hour time without any punctuation.

For instance, the following are all acceptable ways of punctuating a time:

We need to leave by 6 : 45 pm at the latest. ✔

We need to leave by 6 . 45 pm at the latest. ✔

We need to leave by 1845 at the latest. ✔

The colon is the most common option here, but it is a matter of preference. Unless you’re in the military, in which case we suggest sticking to protocol.

6. Time Zones

In the UK, we use the same time across the entire country. Depending on the time of year , this will be either GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) or BST (British Summer Time). As such, if you’re only writing for people in the UK, you will not need to worry about the time zone.

If you are writing for an international audience, though, you may need to include a set of time zone initials when you write out a time. This will let your reader calculate the equivalent time wherever they are. For example, if we were writing a time for an international audience, we might say:

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

The initials UTC here stand for Coordinated Universal Time . Someone in Bolivia could then see this and look up the difference between UTC and BOT (Bolivia Time). And since BOT is four hours behind UTC, they would know the broadcast begins at 5:00 pm where they are.

7. Avoiding Redundancy when Writing the Time

In writing, redundancy means using a word unnecessarily. We mentioned above, for example, that you do not need to use AM or PM with 24-hour times because we already know whether a time is the morning or afternoon/evening when using a 24-hour clock.

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

• Using ‘in the morning’, ‘in the afternoon’, etc., alongside AM/PM.
• Combining ‘in the morning’, ‘in the afternoon’, etc., with a 24-hour time.
• Using ‘midday’, ‘noon’, or ‘midnight’ alongside a time in numbers.

We’ll end this post with a few examples of redundancies so you know what to watch out for. Check out the table below, good luck writing the time, and let us know if you need any help proofreading your work.

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English language resources for efl students and teachers.

Telling the Time in English

You might know your numbers in English , but you need more than numbers to tell the time in English. You also need to be able to ask and answer questions about time and speak about the clock in different life situation.

Read on to find out more about telling the time in English using the 12 hour clock and the 24 hour clock, which prepositions to use, how to ask the time, how to give the time and how the time is used commonly to talk about the working day. We’ve also included a list of idioms and common phrases using the word ‘time’.

Vocabulary for telling the time in English

O’clock, ‘past’ and ‘to’.

For hourly times use the phrase ‘o’clock’. For example: It is three o’clock (pronounced: ‘three oh clock’)

For any minute past the hour but before the half hour, use the word ‘past’ before the previous o’clock, or read out the full numbers.

• The phrase ‘o’clock’ is a shortening of the phrase ‘of the clock’. This is to differentiate it from when we used to tell time by the position of the sun and stars. We always pronounce ‘o’ in this phrase as ‘oh’. In English, we sometimes call zero ‘0’, pronounced ‘oh’, which is faster and easier than saying ‘zero’.

Examples using ‘past’:

• five past three (3.05) – or three-oh-five
• ten past three (3.10) – or three-ten
• Quarter past three (3.15)  – or three-fifteen (sometimes people say ‘fifteen minutes past’, but never just ‘fifteen past’)
• Twenty past three (3.20) – or three twenty
• Twenty-five past three (3.25) – or three twenty-five
• Half past three (3.30) – or three thirty

For any minute beyond the half hour, use the word ‘to’ before the next o’clock.

Examples using ‘to’:

• Twenty-five to four (3.35)  – on BBC radio, the presenters often say ‘five-and-twenty-to’ (or five-and-twenty-past’)  instead of twenty-five-to/past
• Twenty to four (3.40) – or three forty
• Quarter to four (3.45) – or three forty-five
• Ten to four (3.50) – or three fifty
• Five to four (3.55) three fifty-five

The 12 hour clock and AM / PM

When we tell the time in English, we can use the 12 hour clock or the 24 hour clock.

The 12 hour clock splits the day into two 12 hour sections. One lasts from midnight to noon and the second half lasts from noon to midnight.

In the 12 hour clock, we need a way to differentiate between morning and evening, so we use the letter ‘am’ and ‘pm’ to show whether 11.20 is in the morning or at night.

Hours before noon are called ‘a.m.’ (pronounced ay-em), which comes from the Lain ‘ante meridiem’, which means before midday.

Hours after noon are called ‘p.m.’ (pronounced pee-em), which comes from the Lain ‘post meridiem’, which means after midday.

Often we write these shortenings without the full stops in between the letters, so they are often written in common usage as ‘am’ and ‘pm’.

So 11.20 in the morning is 11.20 am  (eleven twenty or twenty past eleven)

and 11.20 at night is 11.20 pm

The 24 hour clock 

If we use the 24 hour clock to tell the time in English, there is no need to use ‘am’ and ‘pm’. This is because 11.20am is simply 11.20, and 11.20 pm is 23.20.

When we get past 12 noon the time does not go back to 1, but instead moves onto 13, often written with an ‘h’ after the number, for example 13h.

In Britain we often use the 12 hour clock (except for transport timetables when the 24 hour clock is always used) but in other European countries it is common to use the 24 hour clock in social situations when writing about the time. Here the suffix ‘h’ is often used, for example 14h or 14.30h. However when speaking , the 12 hour clock is always used.

When it is in the morning and there is only a single digit number in use (e.g. one through to nine) the 24 hour clock uses a zero first in formal situations, such as a train timetable, for example, 08.30.

Examples from the train timetable above:

The first train departs London Euston at 0640 (six forty, twenty to seven, or 6.40 am) and arrives at Watford Junction at 0655 (six fifty-five, five to seven, or 6.55 am)

The train that departs from Birmingham International at 1739 (seventeen thirty-nine, five thirty-nine, 5.39 pm, or twenty-one minutes to six) arrives at Birmingham New Street at 1751 (seventeen fifty-one, five fifty-one, 5.51 pm, or nine minutes to six).

The last train to depart Milton Keynes Central at 2248 (twenty-two forty-eight, ten forty-eight, 10.48 pm, or twelve minutes to eleven) arrives at Coventry at 2352 (twenty-three fifty-two, eleven fifty-two, 11.52 pm, eight minutes to midnight/twelve).

• If we want to read out the time using the 24 hour clock , instead of using ‘o’clock’ we can say ‘hundred hours’. For example, 14:00 would be ‘fourteen hundred hours’. For 0800 we can say ‘oh eight hundred hours’. Each digit is pronounced . This usage is rare in every day speech though and would normally only be used in specialist situations, such as in the military. This is why the 24 hour clock is sometimes called ‘military time’.

How to separate the numbers when writing the time?

Some people use a dot as punctuation to separate the numbers when writing a digital time (2.30 pm), other people use a colon (14:30) – colons are especially popular in 24 hour clock format.

Sometimes people use nothing at all to separate numbers using the 24 hour clock (1430). Whichever format you chose when writing the time in English, try to keep it consistent .

Examples of telling time in English with an analogue clock 

The second clock shows: four forty-five /  quarter to five / 4.45 am / 4.45 pm or 04.45 / 16:45

The third clock shows: quarter past twelve / 12.15 am / 12.15 pm / 00.15

The fourth clock shows: twenty-five past eight / 8.25 am / 8.25 pm / 20.25

• When it is 5 minutes past the hour, we never say the numbers only (‘six five’) we would have to say ‘six oh five’, using the sound ‘oh’ to represent the zero for 6.05. More commonly, we would say ‘five past six’.
• We only tend to use ‘to’ or ‘past’ with minutes that are multiples of five (e.g. ’10 to five’, ’20 to five’, 25 past four’) but ‘quarter to’ and ‘quarter past’ when it is 15 minutes, and ‘half past’ when 30 minutes.
• We would always say the word ‘minutes’ after the o’clock if it is not a multiple of five. For example, we would say ’17 minutes past 5′ and ’23 minutes past 5′.

Prepositions for telling the time in English

We normally use the preposition ‘at’ with times for making plans for a specific time. For example, ‘I am meeting them at two o’clock’.

But we use the word ‘in’ for a less definite amount of time. For example, ‘I am meeting them in two hours’. This implies a a more general time.

How to talk about the general time of day

We use the preposition ‘in’ for a general time of day . For example ‘in the morning’, ‘in the afternoon’ and ‘in the evening’.

If it is late, we normally say ‘at night’ , for example ‘it’s ten o’clock at night’ to mean 10 pm. We also say ‘in the night’ to mean in the middle of the night in general.

We can add the phrase ‘in the morning’ to mean a time before noon. If the time is very early, for example before 6am, we can say ‘early morning’. If the time is in the middle of the night, for example 1 am until 3 am, we can say it is ‘in the early hours’.

• ‘At the crack of dawn’ means very early in the morning, just as daylight is breaking. (For example: “You’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn to get there in time for lunch”)

We say ‘in the afternoon’ for a time between noon and 6 pm, and ‘in the evening for a time after around 6 pm. The phrase ‘at night’ starts to be used later on, after around 9 pm. People might use the word ‘afternoon’ later in the summer because it stays light later.

Other general times would be ‘around 3pm’ or ‘around noon’. For example, someone might ask you: “What time are we meeting tonight?” You could reply: “Around 6pm” or “About half seven”

For general amounts of time, we can use various phrases that aren’t exact, often starting with ‘about’ or ‘around’ . For example:

• ‘It will take about half an hour’ / ‘about 30 minutes’
• ‘I’ll meet you in about a quarter of an hour’ / ‘about 15 minutes’
• ‘We’ll be there in about an hour’
• ‘It should be about an hour and a half’ / ‘about 90 minutes’
• ‘It will only take a few minutes’
• ‘They will be ready in a couple of minutes’ (a couple means two, but people sometimes use ‘couple’ to mean slightly more when talking about time or quantity)

Daylight saving time

At the start of spring, we put the clocks forward one hour to British Summer Time (BST). At the start of winter, we put the clocks back one hour again. This habit of changing the clocks back and forth is in order to use the daylight more effectively. Find out more about changing the clocks and Daylight Saving Time .

How to ask the time in English 

There are a few phrases that we can use to ask the time. Here are some examples:

• Can you tell me the time, please?
• Could you tell me the time, please?
• Excuse me, do you have the time?
• Have you got the time?
• Do you know the time?
• Do you know what the time is?
• What’s the time?
• Got the time?
• Although ‘got the time?’ is an informal and direct way of asking someone the time, this is similar to another phrase ‘have you got time?’ which means ‘do you have enough time (to do something)’?

To answer someone else’s question and give them the time, we need to use the word ‘it is’ or more commonly, ‘it’s’ to introduce the time.

For example:

• It’s four o’clock
• It’s half past two
• It’s about seven
• It’s exactly eight o’clock
• It’s around ten thirty
• It’s 1.05 (‘one oh five’)

If you can’t help them, you might want to say:

• Sorry, I don’t have the time
• I’m sorry, I don’t have my watch on
• Sorry, I’m not wearing a watch
• I’m sorry, I can’t see the clock from here

Time used to describe the working day 

There are a few phrases we use related to time in English speaking countries. Traditionally the ‘working day ‘ is called ‘9 to 5’. This means 9 am until 5 pm. These are the opening hours of most shops. (Many shops in the UK now regularly open until 5.30pm or 6pm. There is also often a ‘late night shopping’ day once a week when shops will open until 8pm or 9pm).

The hours of 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday are often called ‘office hours’. Of course, office hours today can also mean until 6 pm or later, but traditionally it was always from 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon/evening.

These office hours were also used in the famous film and song by Dolly Parton ‘9 to 5’ where she sings ‘working nine to five, what a way to make a living’. The phrase ‘to make a living’ means to earn money .

The phrase is used in the song in a negative way to imply working hard for little pay and for someone else’s benefit.

As Dolly sings in ‘9 to 5’:

‘Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition Yawn and stretch and try to come to life Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin’ Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin’ With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5′

‘Workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’ Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’ They just use your mind and they never give you credit It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it’

‘9 to 5, for service and devotion You would think that I would deserve a fat promotion Want to move ahead but the boss won’t seem to let me I swear sometimes that man is out to get me !’

Other phrases related to work are ‘full time’ and ‘part time’. A full-time job usually means a job that you do every day for around 40 hours per week.

A part-time job means a job that that you do for fewer hours than a full time job. This might be three days a week or perhaps four hours per day, instead of the usual eight hours per day for a full-time job.

If someone is ‘taking time off’, it means they are taking a break from work or study.

Phrases and idioms using the word ‘time’

Other phrases with the word ‘time’ include:

Having the time of my life  – having an amazing time (‘Are you enjoying the concert?’ ‘Yes, I’m having the time of my life!’)

A race against time  – a situation where you have to rush to finish something (‘It was a race against time to finish the essay before the deadline’)

Time will tell  – the passing of time will show the result (‘Only time will tell whether Brexit is a good or bad thing for the UK’)

To be / run out of time – to have no time left, when you have missed a deadline or come to the end of a time limitation (“I didn’t finish the exam – I ran out of time”); to be out of step with the musical rhythm (“He is a terrible dancer, he is always out of time”)

To be running out of time – to have little time left (“Hurry up, you’re running out of time”)

Take your time – don’t hurry (“Take your time – there’s no rush, there’re not expecting us until 9pm”)

Taking your own sweet time – taking a long time to do something (“He’s taking his own sweet time about it, isn’t he? The job should’ve been finished on Tuesday”) – usually said with annoyance about someone when they are taking too long to do something.

Behind the times – old-fashioned, not up-to-date (‘He can’t even use a computer; he’s really behind the times’)

To have time – Do you have enough time (to do something)? (“Have you got time to help me fix the car?” / “We could drop them off at my house first, if we’ve got time”)

In the nick of time  – at the last moment, just before the deadline (‘I caught the train in the nick of time, seconds before it left the station’)

To stand the test of time  – to continue successfully for a long time (This film is still relevant today – it has really stood the test of time’)

To have time on your hands  – to have a lot of spare time, to have too much free time (‘He is always gossiping with his colleagues – he must have a lot of time on his hands’)

Time flies  – time passes quickly (‘time flies when you’re having fun’ – this is a common idiom used to describe something that is so enjoyable that time feels like time passes more quickly than it really does)

Taking time off – taking a break from something (“I won’t be at work next week, I’m taking some time off”)

From time to time – occasionally, now and then, every so often (‘”He visits his friends in London from time to time”)

Let us know your thoughts about time

Hopefully you feel more confident about telling time and talking about time in English. Do let us know if you have any other time-related questions or anything else you want us to over on this page.

Are you comfortable using am and pm, 24 hour clock and military time?

What other time-related phrases or idioms have you heard?

Do you find telling the time difficult in English? Do you have any tips for non-native speakers?

Which time-related words or phrases do you find most confusing ?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

15 thoughts on “ Telling the Time in English ”

It is too difficult and make me headache.

So sorry to hear that, Sandy! Is there any specific area of telling the time in English that you need help with? If you are finding it difficult to understand the various ways to say the time, simply stick to saying the numbers. For example, use 3.45, 7.40, 5.15, 6.35 – don’t worry about saying ‘quarter to’, ‘twenty to’, ‘quarter past’ or ‘twenty-five to’.

Also, you can pick your favourite way to ask the time and always use that version. Sometimes having more options can feel overwhelming and confusing (and can cause a headache!) As long as you recognise the expressions when someone speaks to you, all you need to be able to use is your favourite expressions. It is better to learn one way of asking / giving the time perfectly than lots of different ways and confuse yourself!

How to pronounce 13:50:30 (also the seconds) in 24 hour format

Hi Frank, For this I’d say “thirteen fifty and thirty seconds”.

Really comprehensive and informative. Thank you!

You’re welcome, Jamarta! Glad you found the page useful.

Hai I’m Davin, I like to study time of 5 minutes

I love it.. simple and clear information for foreigner to understand English

Thank you for sharing it with us. It’s very well explained.

I would like to say I’m bloody surprised that almost the entire world uses this 24-hour format telling the time and I appreciate every individual who worked or done things for this very useful website I hope everything on this website will get shared among all visitors and everybody will utilize the page about what they’re pursuit of. Thnx agayne

amazing and great job. many thanks,very helpful

With the military time system, the 24-hour period goes from hour 0 to hour 23. Thus, 1:20 PM in standard time corresponds to 13:20 military time. You read it as thirteen hundred hours and twenty minutes. Each hour is given its own number in military time, therefore there is no need for a.m. or p.m.

The military time isn’t just exclusive to the military, many institutions like hospitals and emergency services also use this system.

Having spent many years in the Navy, not one person would say zero hundred, for midnight, it is twenty four hundred 2400, always has been and always will be. The next time is 0001 which is all the zero’s/oh’s one. 24 hour time was derived from the military, and is used by all the services, Hospital, Ambulance, Fire services, Police, transport services, and the list continues. zero hundred is not a time. thanks

How I have to understand 8:30 pm ME ?

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It Is a Beauteous Evening Summary & Analysis by William Wordsworth

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

Untitled but generally referred to by its first line, "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" appears in a sequence of "Miscellaneous Sonnets" in Vol. I of William Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The sonnet 's speaker appreciates the serene beauty of coastal sunset while on a walk with a "Dear Child" (usually read as the speaker's daughter). Though the girl doesn't seem particularly awestruck by the majestic scenery, the speaker reasons that this is because children feel the majestic presence of God (or nature) all the time. The poem was inspired by a seaside walk Wordsworth took with his daughter Caroline in Calais, France.

• Read the full text of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”

The Full Text of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”

1 It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

2 The holy time is quiet as a Nun

3 Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

4 Is sinking down in its tranquility;

5 The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;

6 Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

7 And doth with his eternal motion make

8 A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

9 Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

10 If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

11 Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

12 Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;

13 And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,

14 God being with thee when we know it not.

“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Summary

“it is a beauteous evening, calm and free” themes.

The Holiness of Nature

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Childhood and Faith

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “it is a beauteous evening, calm and free”.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Lines 12-14

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Personification.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Alliteration

“it is a beauteous evening, calm and free” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Tranquility
• Broods o'er
• The mighty Being
• Everlastingly
• Abraham's bosom
• Worshipp'st
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”

Rhyme scheme, “it is a beauteous evening, calm and free” speaker, “it is a beauteous evening, calm and free” setting, literary and historical context of “it is a beauteous evening, calm and free”, more “it is a beauteous evening, calm and free” resources, external resources.

Wordsworth's Life and Work — Read a biography of the poet at the Poetry Foundation.

More on the Romantics — Check out the Poetry Foundation's "Introduction to British Romanticism," the movement with which Wordsworth is closely associated.

Poems, in Two Volumes (Vol. I) — Read the poem in its original context: the 1807 volume in which it was first published.

The Romantics and Nature — Watch a BBC documentary on the British Romantics (including Wordsworth) and their relationship to the natural world.

The Poem Aloud — Watch British actor Benedict Cumberbatch read "It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free."

LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

A Complaint

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Expostulation and Reply

Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)

I Travelled Among Unknown Men

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

Lines Written in Early Spring

London, 1802

My Heart Leaps Up

Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She was a Phantom of Delight

The Solitary Reaper

The Tables Turned

The World Is Too Much With Us

Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

To a Snowdrop

We Are Seven

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18 Awesome Descriptions Using Time To Use In Writing

By describing where the events are about to take place, you can transport your reader into another world. Make use of the five senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste – to evoke the atmosphere of the setting.

The following will give you some examples of how you can describe using time as the main element.

The same place can look and feel very different at different times of the day. Take a park, for example.  At daybreak, it is cool and invigorating, full of songbirds, walkers and joggers. At midday, it is sleepy, hot and still. In the evening, shadows lengthen and coolness returns. But at night, it can be a frightening place, with dangers lurking in the dark shadows of the foliage.

• The day dawned crisp and clear.
• The sun poured through my window. Another day had dawned, bringing with it new hopes and aspirations.
• The light of dawn seeped into my room. I rubbed my bleary eyes and walked to the window. There was a pearly glow in the sky.
• The first rays of sunlight lit up my room. The dawn chorus of melodic birdsong drifted in.
• The rising sun cast a rosy hue across the morning sky. Golden fingers of sunlight lit up the scene.
• The just-risen sun shone softly on the city streets, bringing with it a flurry of early-morning activity.
• Dappled sun shone through the trees, creating mysterious shadows.
• The blue sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds that drifted lazily in the gentle breeze.
• The blazing midday sun shone relentlessly on the hikers.
• The roads shimmered in the heat of the midday sun. The sunlit skyscrapers pierced the hot, blue sky.
• The afternoon sun bathed the buildings in its warm light.
• Tiny specks of dust seemed to dance in the shaft of afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window.

EVENING AND NIGHT

• The evening sun cast long shadows on the ground. The slanting rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange tinge to the sky.
• The sky was ablaze with the fire of the setting sun.
• The night sky was aglow with bright city lights.
• The pale crescent moon shone like a silvery claw in the night sky.
• We looked up at the blanket of stars that stretched to infinity.
• The occasional barking of faraway dogs broke the silence of the night.

Encourage your child to use these descriptions in the tests and examinations. Help them familiarise with these phrases through simple activities by writing short introductory paragraphs with one or two of the descriptions, or give them short dictation quizzes!

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Essay on Evening Walk

Students are often asked to write an essay on Evening Walk in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Evening Walk

Introduction.

An evening walk is a simple yet effective way to rejuvenate our mind and body. It’s a time when the sun sets, painting the sky with vibrant colors, and the cool breeze begins to blow.

Experience of an Evening Walk

Walking in the evening is a delightful experience. The setting sun, the chirping birds returning to their nests, and the calmness of the environment make it a peaceful time.

Benefits of an Evening Walk

An evening walk has numerous health benefits. It helps in improving physical fitness, reducing stress, and enhancing our mood. It’s an easy and enjoyable way to stay healthy.

In conclusion, an evening walk is a simple activity that offers immense benefits. It’s a wonderful habit that everyone should adopt for a healthier lifestyle.

250 Words Essay on Evening Walk

The enchantment of evening walks.

Evening walks, a seemingly mundane activity, can be a profound experience. They offer a unique blend of physical, mental, and emotional benefits, providing a holistic approach to wellness.

Physical Revitalization

The act of walking, especially in the evening, can be a gentle but effective physical exercise. As the sun dips, the temperature drops, creating a pleasant environment for physical exertion. This aids in digestion, promotes cardiovascular health, and can contribute to weight management.

Mental Serenity

Beyond physical benefits, evening walks also offer a mental oasis. The tranquility of the evening, punctuated by the sounds of nature, provides a respite from the day’s chaos. It serves as a form of meditation, allowing the mind to declutter and refocus, enhancing mental clarity and reducing stress.

Emotional Connection

Evening walks can also serve as an emotional conduit. The solitude can facilitate introspection, helping us connect with our inner selves. Alternatively, walking with a companion can foster deeper interpersonal connections, as the relaxed setting encourages open conversations.

The Aesthetic Appeal

Lastly, the aesthetic appeal of the evening sky, with its myriad hues, can be a source of inspiration and artistic expression. The changing colors of the dusk sky, the first glimmers of stars, and the rhythmic sounds of the night can stir up profound emotions and thoughts.

500 Words Essay on Evening Walk

The essence of an evening walk.

An evening walk is a timeless ritual, a practice that has been embraced by people across cultures and generations. It is a simple act, yet profoundly impactful, a conduit for introspection, rejuvenation, and connection with nature. It is a space where the mind meets the body in a harmonious symphony of movement and thought.

The Physical Benefits

The physical benefits of an evening walk are manifold. Regular walking helps to maintain a healthy weight, strengthen bones and muscles, and improve balance and coordination. It is a low-impact exercise that can be adapted to any fitness level. The rhythmic pattern of walking has a calming effect on the body, reducing stress and promoting better sleep. Moreover, the evening air is often cooler and less polluted, making it an ideal time for outdoor exercise.

The Psychological Impact

Connection with nature.

An evening walk is also an opportunity to connect with nature. The soft glow of the setting sun, the gentle rustle of leaves, the chorus of evening birds – these are experiences that ground us, reminding us of our place in the larger ecosystem. This connection with nature can foster a sense of peace and well-being, and studies have shown that exposure to nature can reduce feelings of stress and anxiety.

The Social Aspect

Finally, an evening walk can be a social activity. It can be a time to connect with friends or family, to share thoughts and experiences, or simply to enjoy each other’s company in a relaxed setting. Shared walks can strengthen bonds, fostering a sense of community and belonging.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Time Management Tips For Writing an Essay

How to start, which place are you now, where do you want to go, tips for time management, 1. create a schedule, 2. use a timer, 3. to-do lists help organize your tasks, 4. start writing early or write late in the evening, 5. don't be afraid to wait until you are in the mood to write, 6. widen the definitions of what you mean by writing, 7. start by taking on the tough stuff first, 8. don't be fooled by the myth of multitasking, 9. outsource the fewer essentials, 10. you should spend more time planning and less time editing, 11. make sure you write your words down before you start, 12. utilize your daytime work hours to relax, 13. batch similar activities, 15. delegate tasks, 16. accept your limitations, 17. limit distractions, 18. modify the notification settings on your smartphone, 19. check your email less, the benefits of time management, 1. stress relief, 2. more time, 3. more opportunities, 4. capability to accomplish the goals.

• Joe Eckel Author Having spent more than 25 years guiding students through their theses and dissertations with great attention, Joe Eckel is now sharing his valuable experience with StudyCrumb. As a passionate researcher and instructor, he makes sure that each student gets precious insights on composing A-grade academic writing.

Home — Essay Samples — Geography & Travel — Beach — Description of a Perfect Evening at the Beach

Description of a Perfect Evening at The Beach

• Categories: Beach

About this sample

Words: 471 |

Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 471 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Bell, B., & Slade, J. (2019). The Beach Book: Science of the Shore. Columbia University Press.
• Downs, R. M. (2018). The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans. University of Georgia Press.
• Barbour, D. B., & Goddard, S. (Eds.). (2017). The Beach and the City: Aesthetic Urbanism in the Twenty-First Century. Lexington Books.
• Harman, T. (2018). Waves and Beaches: The Powerful Dynamics of Sea and Coast. Reaktion Books.
• Blum, J. D., & Roberts, S. J. (Eds.). (2016). From the Gulf to the Aral: The Long-Term Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities. Geological Society of America.
• Johnson, D. W., & LaTourrette, T. (Eds.). (2017). Making the Beach Safe for the Public: Risk, Responsibility, and Liability. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Viles, H. A., & Spencer, T. (2018). Coastal Problems: Geomorphology, Ecology and Society at the Coast. Routledge.
• Williams, A. T., & Clifford, N. J. (2017). Coastal and Marine Geospatial Technologies. Springer.
• Bird, E. C. F. (2019). Coastal Geomorphology: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons.
• Gehrels, W. R., & Pontee, N. (Eds.). (2018). Coastal Environments and Global Change. John Wiley & Sons.

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IELTS Speaking Part 1: Evening Time

07/25/2022 01:34 PM

General Rules:

Here are some general rules about Part 1 that you may find useful. The point of Task 1 is for you to answer shortly to many questions. Think of it like an interview where you need to answer questions about yourself. You should:

Keep it short. When you practice, in general try to answer in 15 to 20 seconds per question. 

Give at least 1 reason and 1 real-life example. again very general but try to have at least 1 real example in your answer., talk about yourself. this part is all related to you (if the question doesn't say another person)..

So, lets take a look at some questions:

Vocabulary related to the topic

Sentence starters and linking words, idioms or special phrases, do you like the morning or the evening.

My Personal Answer:

What do you usually do in the evening?

What did you do in the evening when you were little why.

Well, we used to have a strong family tradition that used to annoy me a little. We needed to have a full family dinner every night at around 7:30 PM. This was usually around the time they played the night news broadcast , and so we would talk about the news or about each other's day . It was annoying because we had to sit for at least 30 minutes at the dining table and as a young person, I could finish my food in no more than 10 minutes. This meant that I had to stay for quite a while and do nothing , listening to my parents talking. Every night. Anyway, these days I do miss that activity a little.

Are there any differences between what you do in the evening now and what you did in the past?

Well, as I am a grown-up and more independent , there are a lot of differences. For one, I can eat whatever I want , rather than what my parents want. What's more, I can eat at my pace , quickly or slowly, as I wish, and I can watch a movie or a TV series while eating . In general, I have more freedom .

What activities are usually done in the evening?

*For a student.

As a student, there are very few activities outside of the home that we can do. Many of us usually end up studying late at night and then go directly to bed. From what I know, many college students would do the same, although they would have some social life as well. Many university students will hang out at night, especially during the weekend or on Friday.

Do you have any family traditions related to the evening?

How Social Desirability Bias Could Derail the Election for Kamala Harris

T he traumatic memory of November 8, 2016, makes me cautious when I imagine the possibility of Kamala Harris becoming the first woman President of the United States of America. Her racial identity as a mixed-race Black woman further fuels my anxiety, preying on the centuries-old fear that my fellow Americans are not ready to elect a woman—and especially a woman of color—to our highest political office. If history is a teacher, my fears are grounded in a phenomenon social scientists call the Bradley Effect or “ social desirability bias .”

This phenomenon describes the discrepancy between what voters report as their opinions and attitudes on surveys or to pollsters—and their subsequent inaction in the voting booth. The Bradley Effect is named after a Black politician, Tom Bradley. He was Los Angeles’s widely popular mayor who ran for governor of California in 1982.  For weeks leading up to the election, opinion polls anointed him a prohibitive favorite to win the election, much like Hillary Clinton in 2016 . But on Election Day, Bradley lost to his white opponent, George Deukmejian.

Social desirability bias goes to the core of what makes the jobs of political analysts and professional pollsters difficult. It captures the unhelpful human tendency to say one thing, but do another, often in direct opposition to what we say, because we want to be perceived as “socially desirable”—likable to others or feel good about ourselves.

Fear of the Bradley Effect’s impact was likely why Democrats and Republicans who oppose Donald Trump kept pushing for Joe Biden despite concerns about the latter’s fitness for the role. Now with Harris on the ticket—and her race and gender at play together—political analysts across party lines are not making any bets about results and even “imploring everyone to keep their expectations tempered. ”

To manage such extreme uncertainty, we can benefit from understanding how social desirability bias may impact Harris. Having spent the last two decades studying, researching, and teaching about overcoming bias in public and private sectors globally, I am very familiar with the discomfort, shame, and guilt this topic triggers. Regardless of profession, role, or background, we would rather not talk about bias, and my discussions with thousands of people have clued me into why.

Contrary to popular beliefs, we are not born with bias. We weren’t born believing that men are stronger than women or that rich people are more hardworking than poor people. Rather, these stereotypes like all biases are learned mental habits. Neuropsychologist Donald Hebb described this phenomenon as “neurons that fire together, wire together.”

When we consciously or unconsciously succumb to stereotypes, they distort how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions. On election day, this means that a majority of voters—especially in swing states—won’t just report favoring Harris as they are doing now, but they will make the decision to vote for her. To bridge the gap between what voters say and do, they will need to perceive Harris—a mixed-race Black woman—as “Presidential,” something that’s never been done before.  

Many political hopefuls claim that just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t happen. While that may be true, there’s too much at stake for us to leave the outcome solely to hope. The neurological process that activates bias explains how social desirability bias may impact Harris.

The process has three nodes: contact, trigger, and reaction or response. First, our minds make contact with the awareness of a person and their identities like race, gender, age, wealth, and profession. Second, that contact triggers in our minds a host of stored associations with that person and their identities. These associations arise from the unique inputs our minds have been exposed to from our trusted sources of information: family, friends, mentors, influencers, media, and education, and our personal experiences. Last, and here’s the important catch, we each have a choice: to react based on habits, or to respond differently. The Trump campaign is betting on the former, and Harris on the latter.

The bad news for Harris is that she is indeed the underdog. She is fighting an uphill battle because all Americans have been exposed to numerous stereotypes and lies associated with her race and gender. This is why the Trump campaign has attacked her as a DEI hire , not being smart , a radical , her laugh , and even her Blackness . These attacks will likely increase to elicit voters to react from fear, hate, and distrust, as his campaign successfully accomplished in 2016.

Now, the good news is that despite these attacks, Harris can win thanks to a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity . In other words, just as biases are learned habits, they can be unlearned and replaced with new habits. There are five science-backed tools that I collectively call PRISM that can transform bias. Science shows that it takes as little as three weeks to build new habits as long as we practice regularly through our own volition or we are made to practice them by external inputs.

Read More: How The Brain Rewires Itself

PRISM is an acronym for Perspective-Taking, Prosocial Behavior, Individuation, Stereotype Replacement, and Mindfulness. We begin practicing PRISM with mindfulness and work our way backward to perspective-taking. Practicing PRISM is what helped me overcome social desirability bias and the many biases I had internalized about myself. And there is sufficient evidence to believe that if the Harris campaign and all of those who support her effectively apply these tools, they can overcome the risks associated with the Bradley Effect.

Mindfulness

This is the bedrock of the PRISM Toolkit. It is the practice of noticing and labeling stereotypes as stereotypes when they arise in our minds. Such a process of internally acknowledging stereotypes helps us notice their occurrence around us, whether in advertising, the news, or even in our conversation. Through this process we are clearing out the stored stereotypes in our minds as false ideas and reducing their power over the way we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions.

Likely using this tool, the Harris campaign has deliberately avoided references to “glass ceilings” and being the first of any kind. Instead, they have emphasized aspects of her personal and professional life that are relatable to all. As much as her supporters are excited about the many firsts a Harris Presidency would mean, until election day, they must follow the Harris campaign’s lead because many of the voters she is trying to woo have never voted for a Black woman before. They need to perceive her as one of them, so they actuallyvote for her on election day. At the human perception level, emphasizing how she’s different subliminally creates a “me” versus “her” distinction.

Stereotype replacement

We must also become mindful of stereotypes and replacing them with real counter examples. This means visualizing real people who share Harris’s identities and who do defy stereotypes, people like Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Simone Biles, your neighbor, or best friend. We can practice this tool when we notice stereotypes in the media, in conversations, and in our minds. This practice helps us interrupt stereotypes and create new neural associations. The Harris campaign can incorporate strategies like counter-stereotypic imaging in their outreach and advertising to help voters weaken the stereotypes associated with her identities.

Individuation

This is the practice of decoupling stereotypes from individuals. So instead of being in ideas of others based on their racial, gender, or other identities, we are open to discovering the unique person they are. This tool helps strengthen curiosity, interest, and mental capacity to overcome fear and separation that undergirds most stereotypes. Projecting unique stories about Harris as someone who was raised by a single mother, is a prosecutor, and worked at McDonald’s are some ways her campaign can strengthen trust between her as an individual and the voters they are reaching out to.

Prosocial behavior

Practices that cultivate positive mental and emotional states—like kindness, compassion, and joy— oftentimes benefit ourselves and others. Prosocial behaviors are experiences that help us reach emotional states that reduce the negative affect, uncertainty, and fear associated with stereotyped groups of people. Some reasons why social desirability bias continues to influence voting decisions is because people are afraid and thereby they act from that emotion. Practicing prosocial behavior tools helps reduce that fear, allowing us to try something new. The Harris campaign has successfully mobilized their supporters to feel prosocial behaviors like joy and kindness. Until election day, they need to continue to build on this momentum and help undecided voters feel such states.

Perspective-taking

Humans are visual creatures. So a visualization practice of imagining possibilities of being beyond our lived experiences is key to combatting the Bradley Effect. Most effective politicians employ this tool when they ask voters to imagine and feel who they’d be after they vote for them. By emphasizing a future orientation with the slogan “we are not going back,” the Harris campaign is using this tool by inviting voters to expand our aperture of possibility. Their task ahead is to invite voters to not only imagine their vision for our nation but have them believe them.

Once we develop the habit of practicing PRISM, it becomes a part of our modus operandi. We practice mindfulness, stereotype replacement, individuation, prosocial behavior, or perspective-taking in our daily interactions with ourselves and with the external world. And through PRISM, we are able to find a deeper connection with ourselves and others, as well as expand our capacity to deal with difficult emotions, situations, and conversations.

While I can’t predict the outcome in November, the science assures me that practicing PRISM tools can significantly reduce the risks associated with social desirability bias. With less than two months to election day, it would behoove us to put these tools to practice.

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Not rebuilding Casement Park in time for Euro 2028 a missed opportunity – GAA

The failure to ensure that Casement Park will be rebuilt in time for Euro 2028 is a missed opportunity “that our entire society will look back on with considerable regret”, the GAA has said.

Justin McNulty, an SDLP MLA and a former All-Ireland winner with Armagh, said the Government had “moved too slowly and showed no ambition” over the west Belfast stadium.

The UK Government confirmed on Friday night that it will not fund the redevelopment of the derelict GAA stadium in time for the football tournament due to “a significant risk that it would not be built in time”.

UEFA has said that it will review the implications of the decision.

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced the decision in a joint letter to Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.

The ground had been earmarked to host five matches in Euro 2028, being jointly hosted by the UK and Ireland.

The Irish Government and the GAA sporting body had said they would contribute to the redevelopment, but delays and spiralling costs created a funding gap.

Mr Benn and Ms Nandy said the cost of building Casement Park had risen “dramatically” from when the Euro 2028 bid was awarded in October 2023 and now – from £180 million to potentially above £400 million.

They said the risk of the GAA stadium refurbishments not being completed in time was partly due to a lack of building progress made during that time period.

The ministers also said that they were constrained by a Uefa requirement for all stadia to be ready a year before the tournament starts for “essential test events”.

With the Government ruling out funding for redeveloping the stadium before the tournament, the prospect of Belfast hosting any Euro 2028 matches would appear to be over.

The GAA said it would now be seeking an urgent meeting with Mr Benn.

Confirmation that Belfast will not be hosting the Uefa Euro 2028 Championships is a missed opportunity and it is one that our entire society will look back on with considerable regre

Its statement said: “Confirmation that Belfast will not be hosting the Uefa Euro 2028 Championships is a missed opportunity and it is one that our entire society will look back on with considerable regret.

“Ulster GAA has taken every possible step to keep the project on track for the Uefa Euro 2028 Football Championships.

“This included investing over £4 million in critical aspects of pre-enabling works in anticipation of the procurement of the new main contractor.

“On his appointment to office the Secretary of State Hilary Benn, on behalf of the British Government, gave firm commitments that Casement Park will be built, a commitment also given by his predecessor.

“We have sought an urgent meeting with him to agree next steps.”

The statement added: “Casement Park will be built, and we will work with all partners to ensure that the promises made by the Northern Ireland Executive over 13 years ago and within successive programmes for government, to deliver on the strategic stadia need of the GAA in the province and in Belfast, Ireland’s second city, are fulfilled.”

A UEFA spokesperson said: “UEFA has taken note of the UK Government’s position regarding Casement Park, which we will review together with the UK and Ireland 2028 partnership to discuss the implications for the host venue planning of the tournament.”

Mr McNulty said: “The team at Ulster GAA put in an incredible effort to try and get this across the line in time for the Euros and to ensure that the north would reap all the benefits associated with hosting a tournament of this magnitude.

“That this has fallen apart has nothing to do with them and the blame lies solely at the feet of government who have moved too slowly, showed no ambition and now we must pay the price.”

Those responsible for missing out on the Euros should hang their heads in shame

Justin McNulty

He added: “Casement Park is more than a stadium, it’s the heart of the GAA in Ulster and it has lain dormant for far too long.

“The funding for this project was agreed all the way back In 2011 and the delays have had nothing to do with the GAA.

“Construction must begin at Casement as soon as possible so that we can look forward to Ulster finals, community events and all the other benefits a stadium like this will bring.

“Those responsible for missing out on the Euros should hang their heads in shame.”

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill described the decision as “deeply disappointing” and represented a “missed opportunity for sport and our economy”.

However, she insisted that the Executive was still committed to rebuilding Casement Park.

Mr Lyons said the Government had “determined this as not being value for money”.

He added: “Following this announcement, I will engage with the UK Government and other partners to see how Northern Ireland can still benefit from hosting the competition and ensure that there is a lasting legacy for football in Northern Ireland.”

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