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Simple AP Style Cheat Sheet Guide The Smart Writer's Clarity and consistency ar

Simple AP Style Cheat Sheet Guide The Smart Writer's Clarity and consistency are building blocks of great content. When your writing is crisp, clear, and easy to understand, audiences are more likely to leave your site with a positive impression. Unfortunately, many brands forego style guides, and choose to wing it instead. This isn’t necessarily a fatal mistake by any means. However, it does often lead to content that looks sloppy. Without guidelines to enforce consistency, it’s easy to allow your content to become a formatting free-for-all where commas roam free and nothing follows clear logic. The results leave your blog or website looking the Wild West of basic grammatical conventions. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider this: newspapers are written to be as effortless to read as possible. Concise writing and consistent style go a long way toward achieving this goal. There’s a reason why your daily paper sounds how it does. It isn’t just stubborn commitment to rules for their own sake. Does your content need to be perfect to be effective? Not nearly, no. But, everything you can do to enforce consistency and clarity will help your cause. What is AP Style? The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law official style guide of the Associated Press, a not-for-profit news agency that’s been around since 1846. It’s often used by news organizations, magazines, and web publications, but brands often use it to form the basis of their own style guides, too. The official Associated Press style guide gets updated year to year. Arguably, these changes have led to bloat. Detractors say the guide is excessively detailed, beyond the point of being necessary, or even useful. This author doesn’t disagree with this criticism (hence the creation of this simplified blog post). If following this specific style is important for your situation, though, consider buying the official version. It’s available in both digital and hard copies. Who Uses AP Style? Associated Press style is generally used by journalists, but they aren’t alone in using it. Here’s a short list of folks who might need to get familiar with it: ● Journalists ● Editors ● PR Professionals ● Marketers How Do You Denote Ages? A person’s age should always use numerals. When using age as an adjective (using their age to describe an individual), then use hyphens. Examples: The 20-year-old was arrested for underage consumption of an alcoholic beverage. At 34-years-old, Larry Fitzgerald remains impressively athletic. The five-year-old dog greets its owner every morning. How to Format State Abbreviations Every state in the United States has a specific abbreviation. Some of these may not seem obvious. Follow this list to get them right. ● Alabama: Ala. ● Arizona: Ariz. ● Arkansas: Ark. ● California: Calif. ● Colorado: Colo. ● Connecticut: Conn. ● Delaware: Del. ● Florida: Fla. ● Georgia: Ga. ● Illinois: Ill. ● Indiana: Ind. ● Kansas: Kan. ● Kentucky: Ky. ● Louisiana: La. ● Maryland: Md. ● Massachusetts: Mass. ● Michigan: Mich. ● Minnesota: Minn. ● Mississippi: Miss. ● Missouri: Mo. ● Montana: Mont. ● Nebraska: Neb. ● Nevada: Nev. ● New Hampshire: N.H. ● New Jersey: N.J. ● New Mexico: N.M. ● New York: N.Y. ● North Carolina: N.C. ● North Dakota: N.D. ● Oklahoma: Okla. ● Oregon: Ore. ● Pennsylvania: Pa. ● Rhode Island: R.I. ● South Carolina: S.C. ● South Dakota: S.D. ● Tennessee: Tenn. ● Virginia: Va. ● Vermont: Vt. ● Washington: Wash. ● West Virginia: W. Va. ● Wisconsin: Wis. ● Wyoming: Wyo. Which Cities Stand Alone in AP Style? Some American cities are considered well-known enough they don’t need a state abbreviation. This makes sense, since most people know where they’re located. Here’s the full list of U.S. cities that fall under this criteria: ● Atlanta ● Baltimore ● Boston ● Chicago ● Cincinnati ● Cleveland ● Dallas ● Denver ● Detroit ● Honolulu ● Houston ● Indianapolis ● Las Vegas ● Los Angeles ● Miami ● Milwaukee ● Minneapolis ● New Orleans ● New York ● Oklahoma City ● Philadelphia ● Phoenix ● Pittsburgh ● St. Louis ● Salt Lake City ● San Antonio ● San Diego ● San Francisco ● Seattle ● Washington The same goes for the following international cities: ● Amsterdam ● Baghdad ● Bangkok ● Beijing ● Beirut ● Berlin ● Brussels ● Cairo ● Djibouti ● Dublin ● Geneva ● Gibraltar ● Guatemala City ● Havana ● Helsinki ● Hong Kong ● Islamabad ● Mexico City ● Milan ● Monaco ● Montreal ● Moscow ● Munich ● New Delhi ● Panama City ● Paris ● Prague ● Quebec City ● Rio De Janeiro ● Rome ● San Marino ● Sao Paulo ● Shanghai ● Singapore ● Istanbul ● Jerusalem ● Johannesburg ● Kuwait City ● London ● Luxembourg ● Macau ● Madrid ● Stockholm ● Sydney ● Tokyo ● Toronto ● Vatican City ● Vienna ● Zurich Formatting Dates, Days, Months, Times, and Years in AP Style Dates and times have a number of formatting considerations. ● Dates : Follow this format: Monday (day), July 1 (month + date), 2018 (year) . ● Times: Don’t use colons for times on the hour. Ex: 3 p.m., 8:30 a.m . ● Days : Omit st., th., rd., and th. Ex: July 1, not July 1st . ● Months : Abbreviate Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. when writing out a specific date. Spell out names of months when not used to indicate a specific date. Ex: Aug. 3, 2018 . ● Years : Use numerals rather than spelling them out. Ex: 2018, not twenty-eighteen . Other Considerations For Dates and Times ● a.m. and p.m. should use periods and lower case letters. ● Never say “yesterday.” Use the day of the week instead. Formatting Datelines News articles often start with a dateline indicating the location, month, date, and year a story took place. Include city (and state if necessary in the U.S.). Examples: FARGO, N.D. (July, 1, 2018) MILWAUKEE (July 1, 2018) LONDON (July 1, 2018) Abbreviations and Acronyms Use abbreviations for well-known organizations. Acronyms for Organizations ● Ex: FBI, NASA, IRS, NFL, MLB, NHL, FIFA . ● For other organizations, spell it out on first mention, then use abbreviations for subsequent mentions. ● Use your best judgment. If people are unlikely to understand an abbreviation, then don’t use it. Examples: The FBI agent was assigned the case. NASA announced plans to visit Mars. The MLB has not announced hot dog price restrictions for this year. Abbreviations for Formal Titles Make sure your writing respects people’s formal titles. Some examples include political and medical titles. Follow these guidelines: ● Political titles should be abbreviated before full names outside of direct quotes. Examples: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rep. John Lewis . ● Medical titles follow similar format: Example: Dr. Michaela Quinn . Numbers Spell out numbers one through nine, and use digits for numbers 10 and higher. The following exceptions, however, should always use digits: ● Addresses ● Ages ● Monetary values. ● Dates and times. ● Sizes and dimensions. ● Percents. ● Speeds. ● Temperatures. When Should Numerals Be Used? Use numerals when referring to a sequence of events or people. Examples: Super Bowl XLV Queen Elizabeth II World War I What About Percentages? Always use the full word “percent.” The % sign shouldn’t be used. That key might feel neglected, but it’s okay. Example: The analyst predicted a 100 percent increase in site traffic. Sentences Starting With Years Avoid starting sentences with a number, unless referencing a year. Example: 1977 was the last year the Minnesota Vikings went to the Super Bowl. Sizes, Dimensions, and Distances Sizes and dimensions should use numerals and spell out units of measurement. The same goes for distances. Examples: The party sandwich was 10 feet long. The delivery driver travelled 12 miles during harsh weather. Bill Smith is 6-foot-5 and plays basketball in his spare time. Punctuation in AP Style You learned everything you needed to know about punctuation in high school English class, right? Well, maybe or maybe not, but this style has quirks of its own to consider. General Punctuation Here are some general punctuation guidelines: ● Use a single space after a period. ● Commas should go inside quotation marks. Serial Commas In AP style, commas are not included before conjunctions. However, they should be used to separate each item in a list. Example: I ate a hot dog, pizza slice, burger, and an entire pie. Using Periods Lean toward using periods in abbreviations where applicable. Examples: U.N., M.A., U.S.A. Singular Nouns Ending in S When proper nouns end in an S, add an apostrophe at the end. Example: Sally Jones’ red stapler has been stolen. People’s Names Use their first and last name on first mention. Then, use only their last name on subsequent mentions. Example: David Johnson is a professional running back. Johnson plays for the Arizona Cardinals. Using Hyphens Correctly Use hyphens to connect words in compound adjectives. Example: The larger-than-life performer uploads/s3/ ap-style-cheat-sheet.pdf