Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 by Rich Cameron
www.rcameron.com/journalism/101/lectures/style.html
Last updated April 29, 2002

One of the foundations of good newswriting is the consistency in style provided by the Associated Press in its Associated Press Stylebook and libel manual. Do you spell out a number or use the figure? Do you capitalize something or not? Do you spell out California, or if you abbreviate it, is it CA or Calif.? The AP Stylebook sets forth standardized rules to help you determine which.

The AP Stylebook is often called the Bible of newswriting. While other organizations/big newspapers may have their own stylebooks --the LA Times has its own, for instance-- these others often use the AP Stylebook as their base; they simply add their own local rules.

Many years ago the AP Stylebook was a thin volume about a quarter of an inch thick. Today it is about an inch thick and has many more entries. While it may seem to be more appealing to work with the thinner volume, the current version is very user friendly. Instead of breaking into chapters on topics such as capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, etc. and listing some general rules, the book now is in dictionary format and contains thousands of examples that make it much easier to use.

You should have a copy of the AP Stylebook as one of your textbooks. You also have the old version as an appendix of your main textbook. See the Basic Style Guide in the back of the book. The older version is good for getting a sense of what is included in AP style rules, but the newer version is easier to use on a day-to-day basis.

Sorry for the length of this lecture, but there is a lot to learn about AP style. As long as this is, it is just an introduction.


Major areas of style you need to know

While longtime veterans of newspapers may take pride in knowing the most arcane of AP style rules --the rules sometimes are, after all, somewhat arbitrary-- it is enough for you now to have a sense of what is in the book and to develop a habit of using it. You don't for instance, know EVERY word in the dictionary. While a large vocabulary built up over time is a source of pride, what is more important is that you learn to look up words you don't know. The same holds true for style. The more you know, the easier it is to utilize it. But what is important is that you have sense of when to look things up.

There are six areas of AP style that you will encounter nearly every day. That's what we'll discuss today. Over the next week we'll have a number of exercises designed to help you become more familiar with AP style. And throughout the semester we'll have refresher exercises to keep you sharp.

The six areas you'll run across most are:

• Numbers
  
• Names
  
• Dates and Times
  
• Addresses
  
• Punctuation
  
• Abbreviations
  

NUMBERS

Perhaps no area of AP style confounds newcomers as much as numbers: don you spell them out or do you use figure? I've been using AP style for more than 25 years and I STILL have to look up the rules sometimes.

Ironically, it SHOULD be simple. The basic rule of thumb with the use of numbers is that you spell out numbers zero through nine. Double digit numbers and above require the use of figures, until you get to the really high numbers, such as millions and billions.

The trouble is, there are a whole bunch of exceptions to that rule. If you look in your AP Stylebook under "numerals," where the number rules are to be found, you'll notice in bold print all the cross references in the book. These are almost always exceptions to that basic rule. They include number entries on such things as:

• Ages
  
• Percentages
  
• Dimensions (distance, liquid, volume, weight, etc.)
  
• Money
  
• Times
  
• Scores
  

Something to keep in mind that will help you understand when to look up exceptions: Almost all exceptions are to the zero through nine numbers. In all other cases, use the figures. The only exception to THAT rule, is if the number starts a sentence. In all cases but one a number that begins a sentence is spelled out. The one exception is if the number is a year, such as 1998. But it looks really weird to start a sentence with a figure; it usually is a good idea to rewrite the sentence a bit so the figure is no longer the first word.

Be specific with numbers and avoid vague terms like "many," "a lot," and "most." But when you get to the really large numbers, like millions, you can help the reader by rounding off numbers. You would say, for instance, that there are about 1.5 million jelly beans in the barrel. But if you are reporting the winning count for a contest that has you guess the number of jelly beans in the barrel, you would have to be more specific: 1,496,923 beans.

When you get to thousands, include the commas that help the reader separate thousand, hundred thousand, etc. For instance, you would include a comma in 1,998 unless you were talking about the year 1998.

One of the areas of exception to the general rule is with money. It also carries special rules. When talking about money, forget the zero-through-nine rule. Always use figures, but forget the decimal portion of a money figure if you are talking about a dull dollar amount. For instance:

• Wrong: $1.00
  
• Right: $1
  
• Right: $1.15 (the .15 gives you more information)
  
• Wrong: $1 dollar ($ means dollar)*
  

* An exception to this would be if you were writing news copy for broadcast. Then you WOULD use the word dollar along with the dollar sign, because it will help the announcer read the copy properly

NAMES

The next area you'll run across is with use of names. Names appear in practically all your stories. Here are some general rules:

• The first time you use a person's name, you use the full name and usually some kind of identification.
  
  
• The second and subsequent times you use a person's name you just use the person's last name: male or female, child or adult.
  
  
• Do NOT use Mr., Mrs., Miss or Ms. Newspapers today are backing away from use of these courtesy titles. For men it is easy to determine which to use. For women it becomes complicated. And usually it is not needed anyway, so treat them all the same.
  
  
• Earned titles, such as Dr. or Sgt. can be used with the name on first reference, but generally are deleted on second/subsequent references.
  
  
• An often misused title is that of a minister. On first reference use "The Rev. John Jones" or "The Rev. Dr. John Jones." Note that "reverend" is abbreviated, the way "mister" or "doctor" would be.
  

A problem area in including some kind of identification of a person on first reference is in capitalization. Do you capitalize the title or not? The AP Stylebook further complicates the question by saying that there are "true" titles --Vice President of International Affairs-- and "false" titles that merely describe a person's work -- actor, teacher, secretary, etc.

The rule is:

• If the title is a "true" title and precedes the name, and is not separated from the name by other words or punctuation, then you capitalize the title.
  
  
• If the title is somehow separated from the name, lowercase it.
  
  
• If the title follows the name, always lowercase it.
  

If you have problems determining true titles from false titles, the answer is simple. Rewrite the sentence so that the title comes after the name. After the name ALWAYS lowercase it.


DATES

The "when" of a story is important and often comes up in a story. When it does, learn to use the day or date in the story, but not both. We want to be consistent on which to use, so here is the rule for determining which:

• Think in terms of the date of publication. That is NOT the date you necessarily write the story, but the expected date the story should run (for our purposes we'll make that the date the story is due). If the story happened seven days before or will happen seven days after the date of publication, use the day, but not the date.
  
  
• Use real days, not "today," "yesterday" or "tomorrow." You can say things like: next Tuesday, last Wednesday, this Thursday, etc.
  
  
• If the date falls out of the 15-day range, use the date, but not the day. Do not use both day and date in news stories.
  

The same general rule applies to use of the year:

• If the event you are referring to happened one year prior to the publication date or will happen within the year following the publication date, then don't use the year.
  
  
• The exception to this rule is if you are bouncing around from one date within the range to another outside the range you can use the year to clarify things.
  

And yet another rule dealing with dates is whether to abbreviate months when you use them. (Days of the week are ALWAYS spelled out). Here are the rules:

• If the month is used with a specific date, and if the month is one that is abbreviatable, then abbreviate it. (Jan. 20, March 10, etc.)
  
  
• Months that are abbreviatable are January (Jan.), February (Feb.), August (Aug.), September (Sept.), October (Oct.), November (Nov.) and December (Dec.).
  
  
• If the month is used by itself, without a date, then spell out the month. (February is my favorite month).
  
  
• Do not use the "th," "nd," "rd," etc. with dates*.
  

*You WOULD use them if you were writing for broadcast, because, again, it gives the announcer additional information to aid in saying things correctly.


TIMES

The use of times in stories is one of those many exceptions to the general rule of numbers. You almost exclusively use numbers instead of spelling out number. But there are some other rules that you need to remember.

• Always use lowercase a.m. and p.m. with times. You'll see exceptions to this in other newspapers, but for this class always use the a.m. or p.m. For example, you might see:
  

  
  

  The fair will be open from 9:30-11:15.
  
  

  Is that 9:30 a.m. to 11:15 p.m.? Or is it 9:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. or 9:30 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.? Give the reader all the right clues. Likewise, the following example still creates confusion:
  

  The fair will be open from 9:30 to 11:15 p.m.
  
  

• Don't use the words "morning," "afternoon," "evening," or "night" to indicate the time of day if you have used "a.m." or "p.m." to indicate the time. In the following example, it is just plain redundant.
  

  
  

  The fair will open at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
  
  

• Don't use the colon and zeros if the time you are talking about a time that is straight up on the hour. Thus, 9:00 a.m. would simply become 9 a.m. Of course, if something happens at 9:01 a.m. the ":01" actually gives unique information and must be included.
  
  
• Quickly, is midnight at 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.? You have to stop and think for a split second because a split second before midnight it is still p.m. To simplify things, simply use "noon" and "midnight" to refer to times that refer to 12 o'clock. It would be redundant to say that something happens at 12 noon or 12 midnight since noon and midnight always happen at 12. At 12:01 it is no longer noon or midnight.
  

ADDRESSES

Addresses deserve special attention because you run into the numbers rule again, but also cross over into the varied rules dealing with abbreviations.

• Use figures for numbers in addresses, but do not use commas if you get up to the thousands. Occasionally you will run across an exception to this when someone purposely chooses to spell out a number to make it sound classier, such as:
  

  
  

  One Embarcardero Way
  
  

• Do you spell out Street or Abbreviate it? The rule is that IF IT IS ABBREVIATABLE, you abbreviate the word only when used with a specific address. You would abbreviate it when used as 234 Main St., but not if you indicate that a building is located on Main Street.
  
  
  • Abbreviatable words include Street (St.), Boulevard (Blvd.), Avenue (Ave.)
    
    
  • Never abbreviate Road (that's right, though you may have seen it abbreviated elsewhere), Way, Circle, Lane, etc.
    
    
• When referring to a city in a state, do you really need the state? If the city is well known to your readers no you don't. Our readers, for instance, would know smaller cities like Norwalk, Cerritos, Downey, etc. We could assume that our readers also know slightly bigger cities like Fresno, Pasadena, San Jose, Sacramento and Stockton. And we could assume readers anywhere would know where large cities like Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, Chicago and Dallas are. But would the reader know where Yucaipa is? You'd probably need to indicate that it is in California.
  
  
• If you must include the state, do you abbreviate it? And if so, how? If you include a state with a specific city AND IT IS ONE OF THE ABBREVIATABLE ones, you abbreviate it. But don't use the new postal abbreviations. California is NOT CA, it is Calif. New York is NOT NY, it is N.Y. Colorado is NOT CO, it is Colo. Look in your stylebook under the heading of "States" for a quick guide on the proper abbreviation.
  
  
• Some states are never abbreviated. They are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, and Utah.
  
  
• Spell out any state that is referred to by itself (with a specific city ATTACHED)
  

  
  

  Right: The heart of the computer industry is in California.
  

  Right: The heart of the computer industry is in Cupertino, Calif.
  

  Right: The heart of the computer industry is in Cupertino, which is in California.
  
  

  The latter is correct because Cupertino and California are not directly attached.
  

PUNCTUATION

The rules of punctuation are pretty much the same as what you've learned all along in English and grammar classes, but there are some exceptions. Here are some basic punctuation rules.

• The apostrophe is used to indicate omissions in contractions and other certain forms.
  
  
• Use the apostrophe to form plurals of single letters (mind your p's and q's), but omit the apostrophe in forming the plural of multiple letters (ABCs) and in forming the plural of numbers (1920s).
  
  
• The use of a hyphen is complicated and you may need to refer to a dictionary. In general, though, it is used when two or more words are being used as one to modify a noun that follows them (a 7-year-old boy, a 64-yard touchdown). If one of the words is an adverb ending in "ly" you don't use the hyphen.
  
  
• The hyphen is also used to join some prefixes to words when the word starts with a capital letter (un-American), the prefix is "ex" (ex-president), or the prefix and the joining word end in vowels (pre-empt).
  
  
• The comma is omitted before Roman numerals or before Jr.
  
  
• Periods are used in abbreviations if the abbreviation spells a real word, but usually not if the abbreviation does not spell a real word. (NAACP, S.T.A.R.T.)*
  
  
• Quotation marks are used to enclose direct quotations and the titles of books, plays, poems, songs, speeches, lectures, etc. Names of larger volumes, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, a newspaper, the Bible, etc. Do not need quotation marks.
  
  
• Don't use quotation marks to give special emphasis to a word that does not need it. If you are using the word in its true sense you don't need to emphasize it.
  
  
• Sentence-ending or phrase-ending punctuation marks --commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points -- are placed inside the closing quote marks.
  
  
• Use single quote marks ONLY when using a quote within a quote or in headlines. There is no such thing as "sort of emphasis."
  
  
• Omit the final comma before the "and" in a simple series.
  
  
• Do not underline news copy.
  

*Again, for broadcast newswriting you WOULD use the periods as a visual clue to the news reader to sound out each letter.

ABBREVIATIONS

Spell out, do not abbreviate, the names of organizations, firms, agencies, universities, colleges, groups, clubs or governmental bodies the first time a name is used. The second and subsequent times it is used you can use a shortened version, a generic description or and abbreviation to refer to it.

• Do not follow the first reference by encasing an abbreviation in parenthesis. Just use the abbreviation the next time it comes around.
  
  
• If a group is better known by its abbreviation, it is okay to use the abbreviation on first reference (PTA, YMCA, UCLA).
  
  
• If the abbreviation spells out a real word, use periods. If it does not, then don't. If the reader is likely to understand that the "real word abbreviation" is referring to the organization (i.e., NOW for National Organization of Women) the AP Stylebook says it is okay to leave out the periods.
  

There are MANY other style rules, but these should get you started. Become familiar with your stylebook and keep it handy. When I was in school I was poor speller . . . and I refused to use a dictionary, it was too much trouble. When I got used to using a spellers dictionary (a book with just the spellings of thousands of words) I finally got to the point that I was a pretty fair speller. Ironically, the more I used the book the more I got to where I didn't need to use it as often. The same will be true of your stylebook. While there are spell checkers and grammar checkers for your computer, I'm not aware of any commercially available AP Style checkers. You simply have to learn it.

We will be completing style assignments all semester long. Chapter Three in your workbook introduces you to use of style and following chapters all have style exercises in them. You'll also have to apply correct style to stories you'll be writing.

Answer and e-mail the following questions to me.

1. Why do we need style rules?
   
   
2. What is the general rule of numbers and what are some to the exceptions to the rule?
   
   
3. What is the general rule on use of names in story (first and subsequent references)
   
   
4. What is the general rule on use days vs. dates?
   
   
5. What is the general rule on spelling out or abbreviation of months?
   
   
6. What is the general rule on use of times?
   
   
7. What is the general rule on abbreviation of words like Street or Road in an address?
   
   
8. What is the general rule on use of and abbreviation of states?
   
   
9. What is the general rule on use of abbreviations? What kind of punctuation do you use with abbreviations?
   
   rCameron@cerritos.edu