AP Style Cheat Sheet

Website: Also, webcam, webcast and webmaster. But as a short form and in terms with separate words, the Web, Web page and Web feed.

Email: Use a hyphen with other e- terms: e-book, e-business, e-commerce.

Percent: (not %) The teacher said 60 percent was a failing grade. He said 50 percent of the membership was there.

Numbers: As a general rule, spell out numbers from one through nine. Use Arabic figures for 10 and above. Example: first day, one woman, 10 days,21st year, nine years, 50 more.

Serial commas: Commas in a series are for clarity and prevention of ambiguities. In a simple series, AP doesn't use a comma before the last item. If the elements are complex, use commas for all.

Book titles: Capitalize and place quotation marks around the names of books, plays, poems, songs, lectures or speech titles, hymns, movies, TV programs, etc., when the full name is used. "The Simpsons," "The Catcher in the Rye." "

Proper titles (and job titles) are capitalized and abbreviated when placed before a person’s name, titles that follow a person’s name are generally spelled out and not capitalized. Executive Director Keith Fiels Keith Fiels, executive director

Date and time and place: Generally, it’s more readable to put the time, then the date, then the place where an event will occur: CORRECT: The train arrives at 3 p.m. Jan. 3 at Union Station INCORRECT: The train arrives at Union Station on Jan. 3 at 3 p.m.

CORRECT: It’s 7 p.m. INCORRECT: It’s 7:00 p.m.

When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out when using alone, or with a year alone.

When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas. When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas. EXAMPLES: January 1972 was a cold month. Jan. 2 was the coldest day of the month. His birthday is May 8. Feb. 14, 1987, was the target date. She testified that it was Friday, Dec. 3, when the accident occurred.

State Abbreviations

Following are the state abbreviations, which also appear in the entries for each state (postal code abbreviations in parentheses): Ala. Md. N.D. Ariz. Mass. Okla. Ark. Mich. Ore. Calif. Minn. Pa. Colo. Miss. R.I. Conn. Mo. S.C. Del. Mont. S.D. Fla. Neb. Tenn. Ga. Nev. Vt. Ill. N.H. Va. Ind. N.J. Wash. Kan. N.M. W.Va. Ky. N.Y. Wis. La. N.C. Wyo. States that are not abbreviated in datelines or text: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Utah. Also: District of Columbia.

PUNCTUATION: Place one comma between the city and the state name, and another comma after the state name, unless ending a sentence or indicating a dateline: He was traveling from Nashville, Tenn., to Austin, Texas, en route to his home in Albuquerque, N.M. She said Cook County, Ill., was Mayor Daley's stronghold.

ALA SPECIFIC RULES

We use audiobook instead of audio book.