# What Does ½ Really Round Off To? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2021, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-really-round-off-to/939533 "2021-04-07T08:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 15
**Author:** ![yearofglad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b782af/32.png) [@yearofglad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yearofglad)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-really-round-off-to/939533/15 "2021-04-07T15:31:16Z")
A previous thread on rounding: > [@Traditional rounding 'bias'. I don't get it.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traditional-rounding-bias-i-dont-get-it/855085): > > In elementary school when I was taught how to round numbers to a whole number, I was taught that if the last digit ends in 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, round down to ‘0’. Otherwise round up to the next digit. But later on, I was told that this introduces bias and that there are different techniques to deal with it. So I want to believe that it does cause bias because people much smarter than me in this have developed these techniques to reduce it. But I can’t convince myself of it. Can someone explain t… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-really-round-off-to/939533)._