AP Style

I have a like-hate relationship with the Associated Press Stylebook. I sure don’t love it, but I like it because one needs a standard to follow so your writing and style is consistent one story to the next, one week to the next, in sync with other writers of your office and with those of other magazine, web news, company newsletter or whatever publishing you do.  It looks sloppy to the reader if your terms, capitalization or punctuation is not consistent or is incorrect.

Buy one, brief yourself with it, keep it near your computer and refer to it often. A new addition comes out each year and in my opinion there are not enough changes to warrant a brand new one each year, but buy one three years old or less and toss the old one when it is over five years old. You can buy a slightly used one for about 10 bucks and a new one cost about $25. The book contains much more than technical word usage, like newsgathering conduct, privacy, media law and copyright infringement. Get one, read it and use it.

The book changes slightly each year because new words come into use, words magically combine into compound words, and trends change the terms we use. When I first studied journalism, the word fireman had just been done away with in favor of fire fighter, because more women were

entering that field. Then fire fighter became firefighter. Another example of term changes is the word Indian, which was put aside long ago and the term American Indian was used for many years. The current AP Style prefers Native American, which I disagree with because Hawaiians and Eskimos are also natives in America. I lost that argument to another editor proofing a story of mine, but I didn’t edit it and left it American Indian. Bad boy.

For the most part, the few things in the AP Stylebook I don’t agree with I still follow. However, I am still not sold on capitalizing the word internet, because nobody can explain to me how internet fits the definition of a proper noun. Even the title AP Stylebook is wrong. What right does the Associated Press have to create their own unique compound word? It should be "AP Style Book."

Hyphenated words are a pain to keep up with. "Cover up" can be "cover-up" depending if it is a noun or a verb. I hyphenate co-worker but some AP Stylebooks differ depending on the addition you have and my 2009 book leaves the word out. To me, coworker looks like it would read “cow orker” at a glance, so I hyphenate it. In the same way, compound words sometimes are used incorrectly.  Here is a link to a list of 190 common compound words. I like this list because cow orker is not on it.

And for gosh sakes, don't use this blog as a guideline to style!

#journalism #reporter