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Which expression would be better in formal academic writing?

  1. The percentage of incidence is approaching approximately 80%.
  2. The proportion of incidence is approaching approximately 80%.

I believe both ways would be fine, but would like to know any subtle difference in nuance.

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    Neither sound idiomatic to me. We don't have the full context, but my guess is you don't want either percentage or proportion, OR the word approximately. And quite possibly incidence isn't a good word for the context. How about X now happens in nearly 80% of [cases under consideration]?
    – FumbleFingers
    Aug 20, 2017 at 14:13
  • "approaching approximately" sounds like you're deliberately trying to be vague or misleading! Like something from How To Lie With Statistics.
    – Stuart F
    Jul 13 at 10:10

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There is a small difference, in that when describing percentage, you must give a value out of one hundred. As for proportion, you can say 8 out of 10 times.... or 4 out of 5.

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