First Ledes: Writing With (AP) Style

In this assignment you weren't asked to write conforming to AP style. And on this one I won't grade you on that basis. Still, we're going to use this opportunity to start picking up some of the more common AP style points, as in most future assignments I will grade you based on AP style usage.

Like with how to refer to money. Is it $10,000 with the dollar symbol ahead of the amount or 10,000 dollars, with dollars spelled out?

It's the former This is what I pulled from the AP Stylebook, under dollars: Use figures and the $ sign in all except casual references or amounts without a figure.

Number usage has its own specific style under AP rules. Here's the most basic AP guideline, in your style book under numerals: In general "Spell out whole numbers below 10, use figures for 10 and above."

So two should be two, not 2. And 10 should be 10, not ten.

So then, is this correct to start a sentence, under AP Style rules, by spelling out a number like this?

Twenty-two . . . 

Actually, that IS correct number use. This is under the numerals heading:

Spell out a numeral at the beginning of a sentence.

Also, Is it 100 year-old with a hyphen between year and old or 100-year-old with hyphens between everything or 100 year old with no hyphens at all? AP Style under ages: Use hyphens for ages expressed as adjectives before a noun or as substitutes for a noun.

So it's 100-year-old, with hyphens between the 100 and year, and between the year and old.

Also, is it Kalamazoo's Fire Chief, with the title in caps, or Kalamazoo's fire chief, with the title lower-cased?

In the absence of a name with the title, it's the latter.How do I know that? AP Style, under titles:

In general confine capitalization to formal titles used directly before an individual's name ... capitalize formal titles when they are used immediately before one or more names.

So, if you just say Kalamazoo fire chief, it's lower-case. If you say Kalamazoo Fire Chief Tom Izzo, it's upper-case. 

There are a ton of exceptions under titles, so that's a section you probably want to check frequently.


Another AP no-no is using the percentage symbol of % instead of spelling out the word percent. The correct use is to spell out the symbol, like this: 35 percent. Please review the AP listing under percent.

Moving on, many of you referred to the Centers for Disease Control as just that in your lede. A few of you called used its acronym of CDC in a first reference. An acronym is a word formed from the first letter or letters of a series of words, such as MSU (which is the acronym for Michigan State University).

And using an acronym on first reference is probably a no-no.

In most first cases, it's best to spell out the full title of an entity. If an acronym is especially well-known -- like NASA or FBI or USA -- then generally it is acceptable in a first reference. I'm not sure CDC makes that cut, FYI.

Now, in subsequent references you have a few options. One is to refer to the center in the generic, like I just did: as the center, lower-cased. A second option would be to consider using the acronym, after establishing what the acronym is in the first reference.

This is where I'm going to refer you back to AP Style. Please carefully read and review the listing for abbreviations and acronyms.

Speaking of the CDC, was it Center for Disease Control or Centers for Disease Control? Did anybody check AP style under Centers for Disease Control? What does it say?

The idea behind AP style is not simply to drive you crazy; it's also to create a consistent way of referring to terms and phrases and stats and such throughout not just a story, but throughout all stories offered by a single media organization. Consistency is the key point I'd like you to learn here, and we'll use AP style as the baseline.

I know the AP Stylebook is a lot to digest. But as this class goes on, I expect that you improve by checking your word use against the AP Stylebook, and by remembering AP Style rules as we go along.

What I'm saying is, I don't expect you to make the same mistake twice. I expect you to learn from your mistakes and apply the lessons going forward.

When it comes to types of language you're likely to frequently -- like numbers and money references -- you may want to make a cheat sheet that you can quickly refer to. Just an idea, folks.