Associated Press Stylebook - Quick Tips

Here's a Quick Reference sheet

Numbers

•

Spell out the numbers one through nine. Use Arabic numerals for 10 and up. Always useArabic numerals for ages and percentages, even for numbers less than 10.

•

Spell out numbers that start a sentence. If the result is awkward, re-work the sentence:

Seventy-five students attended the symposium yesterday. Yesterday, 635 seniors wereawarded degrees.

•

The exception to this rule is a sentence that begins with a calendar year:

2007 was arecord-breaking year for fundraising.

•

Use Roman numerals for wars, monarchs and Popes:

World War II, King George VI, Pope John XXIII 

•

In the case of proper names, use words or numerals according to the organization’s practice:

3M, Twentieth Century Fund, Big Ten

Abbreviations

Academic Degrees

•

Avoid abbreviations:

 Jehuda Reinharz, who has a doctorate in modern Jewish history …

•

Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, etc.

•

There is no apostrophe in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science.

•

Use abbreviations such as B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. only when the need to identify many people by degree on first reference would make the preferred method cumbersome; usethe abbreviations only after a full name and set the abbreviations off with commas:

 Dorothee Kern, Ph.D., delivered a lecture on enzymes.

Dates

•

Always use Arabic figures, without

 st 

,

nd 

,

rd 

or 

th

.

•

When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec.:

 Fall Open House will be held on Oct. 8.

•

When a phrase lists only a month and year, do not separate the month and the year withcommas:

The new Web site will launch in December 2007.

•

When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas:

 Jan. 152008, was the first day of the semester.

Time

•

Use figures except for noon and midnight

•

Use a colon to separate hours from minutes:

3:30 p.m.

•

4 o’clock is acceptable, but time listings with a.m. or p.m. (with periods) are preferred

United States

•

As a noun, use United States:

 Brandeis is one of the youngest private researchuniversities in the United States.

•

As an adjective, use U.S. (no spaces):

 A U.S. senator will speak at Brandeis tomorrow.

States

•

Spell out the names of the states when they appear alone:

The governor of Massachusettswas re-elected.

•

Abbreviate the names of states when they appear with the name of a city, town, village or military base:

Waltham, Mass., Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

•

Do not abbreviate Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas or Utah

•

Use the following state abbreviations:Ala. Ga. Mich. N.J. R.I. Wis.Ariz. Ill. Minn. N.M. S.C. Wyo.Ark. Ind. Miss. N.Y. S.D.Calif. Kan. Mo. N.C. Tenn.Colo. Ky. Mont. N. D. Vt.Conn. La. Neb. Okla. Va.Del. Md. Nev. Ore. Wash.Fla. Mass. N.H. Pa. W.Va.

Punctuation

Apostrophe

•

For plural nouns ending in

 s

,

add only an apostrophe:

the students' grades, states' rights

•

For singular common nouns ending in

 s,

add

's: the hostess's invitation, the witness'sanswer 

•

For singular proper names ending in

 s,

use only an apostrophe:

 Brandeis’ mission

•

For singular proper names ending in

 s

sounds such as

 x, ce,

and

 z,

use

's: Marx's theories

•

For plurals of a single letter, add

's: She received all A's this semester.

•

Do not use

's

for plurals of numbers or multiple letter combinations:

the 1960s, USEMs

Colon

•

Capitalize the first word after a colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a completesentence:

She promised this: The team will go to nationals this year.

But:

There were three issues with the project: expense, time and feasibility.

•

Colons go outside quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted material.

Comma

•

Do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series:

 Boston, Newton,Cambridge and Lexington

•

Use a comma to set off a person's hometown and age:

 John Smith, Newton, was accepted to Brandeis. Jane Smith, 22, graduated yesterday.

Hyphen

•

Use a hyphen for compound adjectives before the noun:

well-known student, full-time job, 20-year sentence

•

Do not use a hyphen when the compound modifier occurs after the verb:

The student was well known. Her job became full time. He was sentenced to 20 years.

Parentheses

•

The temptation to use parentheses is a clue that a sentence is becoming contorted. Try torewrite the sentence, putting the incidental information between commas or dashes, or ina separate sentence. If you must use parentheses, follow these punctuation guidelines:

•

Place a period outside a closing parenthesis if the material inside is not a sentence

(suchas this fragment)

.

•

If the material is an independent complete sentence, place the period inside the parentheses.

Period

•

Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence.

•

Do not put a space between initials:

C.S. Lewis; J.K. Rowling 

.

Quotation marks

•

In dialogue, each person’s words are placed in a separate paragraph, with quotationmarks at the beginning and end of each person’s speech.

•

Periods and commas always go within quotation marks.

•

Dashes, semicolons, question marks and exclamation points go within the quotationmarks when they apply to the quoted material. They go outside when they apply to thewhole sentence.

•

Use single marks for quotes within quotes:

Smith said, "She told me, ‘I wish I had beenaccepted to Brandeis.'" 

Titles

•

Titles of 

academic

courses

:-

Do not italicize course titles or put quotation marks around them.

•

Titles of 

books, computer games, movies, operas, plays, poems, albums, songs, radioand television programs, lectures, speeches

and

works of art

:-

Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters-

Put quotation marks around all such works except the Bible and books that are primarily catalogs of reference material:

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” “GoneWith the Wind,” NBC’s “Today Show,” Encyclopedia Britannica

 -

Translate a foreign title into English, unless the American public knows the work  by its foreign name: Rousseau’s “War,” not Rousseau’s “La Guerre.” BUT:Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”

•

Titles of 

newspapers

and

magazines

:-

Do not place these titles in quotation marks.-

Capitalize

the

in the name if that is the way the publication prefers to be known.-

Lowercase

the

before names if listing several publications, some of which use

the

 as part of the name and some of which do not:

Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the New York Times

•

Titles of 

directions/regions

:-

Lowercase north, south, northeast, northern, etc. when they indicate compassdirection:

The cold front is moving east.

-

Capitalize compass points when they designate U.S. regions:

 A storm system that developed in the Midwest is spreading eastward.

 -

With names of countries, lowercase compass points unless they are part of a proper name or are used to designate a politically divided nation:

northern France, western United States, Northern Ireland 

 -

With states and cities, lowercase compass points when they describe a section of astate or city:

western Massachusetts, southern Atlanta

 -

Capitalize compass points when used in denoting widely known sections:

Southern California, the Lower East Side of Manhattan

•

Titles of 

seasons

:-

Lowercase spring, summer, fall and winter, as well as derivatives like wintertimeunless part of a formal name:

the Winter Olympics