Mastering the Fundamentals of AP Style Writing

Whenever we get to college and begin to grasp the concepts of our chosen major, there are always those nit-picky things we must know, memorize, or have in our back pockets. As a journalism student, this nit-picky and unnecessarily difficult thing to learn was AP-style writing. AP Style, short for Associated Press Style writing, is the holy grail of journalistic writing practices. Its purpose is to provide consistency, accuracy, and brevity to journalistic writing. This instructable will provide an easy way to memorize and prioritize the most common grammar aspects of AP Style writing in the strategy and order that I find most useful for learning journalists.

The only supplies you will need are:

• Writing tool like paper or a laptop
• Quizlet (optional)
• AP Style Guide (optional)
• Good attitude toward learning!

The first thing that all journalists should know before they even begin writing, is news values. These are known as: “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How” more commonly referred to as the 5 W’s and How. Once you have mastered these, you can write anything.

Whenever starting a new story or trying to grab the audience’s attention, be sure to incorporate each of these values into the beginning parts of your piece: 

• Who is this story about?
• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Where did it occur?
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?

As long as you can answer and address a few of these, you can get the audience engaged. If you can’t answer at least two of these questions, then maybe it’s not quite time to write your story. 

AP Tip:

Always be sure that when you start writing, you know the purpose and news value the story has.

One of the quickest ways to answer the 5 W’s and How, is in your headline. Headlines set the tone and angle of your piece because it's the first thing a reader sees. If you can quickly and elegantly capture the meaning of the piece and draw in an audience, you’ve written a good headline.

Above are some examples of recent headlines from AP News. They all are short, catchy, and set the scene for what the story is about. 

These are a few things to keep in mind when writing headlines:

• Most editors don’t want headlines over 65 characters (that includes letters, numbers, and spaces)
• Know the difference between Upstyle and Downstyle headlines
• UPSTYLE LOOKS LIKE THIS
• Downstyle Looks Like This (editors typically prefer downstyle)
• Articles such as: a, the, and an are cut out unless absolutely necessary

Practice:

The best way to know how to write a headline is to practice writing them. Take a news article, read it through, and come up with your own headline that’s catchy and fits the character limit. It’s harder than you think, but practice always makes your AP-style writing stronger.

The lead is arguably the most important part of your story. This is where readers decide if they want to read the entire piece or move on. Your lead should expand on the 5 W’s and How to provide the “need-to-know” information about the story. It should start with a dateline, which includes the location of the story, commonly the city name with the state abbreviated.

Your lead should tell the readers what to expect while also letting them understand the basic topic of the story. Here is a recent story from AP News where the lead fits these criteria: Baltimore Bridge Collapse

Leads are usually one to two sentences and give the baseline facts of the story. They are no longer than 30 to 35 words and hone in on the news values of the story. 

Practice:

Similarly to headlines, the best way to memorize and feel confident in writing leads is by practicing. Take a story, read it through, and make your own lead in less than 30 words that meets all of the points listed here. If you can fit it all into one sentence, that’s even better.

Learning how to write and organize numbers in AP Style is one of the most difficult things to figure out. The numbers that journalists encounter most frequently are times, dates, monetary values, or the number of things. 

• The rule of thumb in AP Style is to write out every single number that is lower than 10.
• For everything higher than 10, use numerals.
• If a sentence begins with a number, spell it out, unless the number is a year. 
• When writing times, use a.m. and p.m. but don’t use extra zeros. It should look like this: 7 p.m., 10 a.m., 1:45 p.m. 
• Use noon and midnight rather than 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. 
• When discussing ages, use the numeral: Beth, a 15-year-old 
• When talking about money, do not spell out monetary amounts or use extra zeros. It should look like: $6 or $2.30, but not $6.00 or six dollars.

Numbers are difficult because it’s different for everything. 

Practice:

The best way that I have found to master them is by repetition. Practicing to write numbers in AP style makes it easier to do it naturally. What I used to do was watch television and type out the sentences they said that had numbers for practice. For example:

“I dated him for two years! From 2001 to 2003…isn’t that crazy?!”

Repetition and practice are some of the best ways to familiarize yourself with AP Style. Learning a new way to write is never easy, but keep trying and you’ll get there!

Remember the dateline portion that is used in the lead? This is where memorization and knowledge of states and cities come in handy. In AP Style, certain states are abbreviated while others are not, but there are a few exceptions and it’s important to note them so your story is targeted to the right location. 

• Spell out state names when they stand alone in the text: Wildfires continued to rage through Colorado this week.
• Abbreviate the state when it appears with the name of a city or town: Columbus, Ga.
• When abbreviating U.S. states, do so as listed in the image above.
• When writing datelines, put the city in CAPITAL LETTERS. The city is usually followed by the state abbreviation: SANTA FE, N.M.
• Domestic and international large cities stand alone in datelines, these include Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, etc. (see the AP Stylebook under “datelines” for a complete listing). 

Practice:

The best way to memorize locations and how to write them is with memorization. I recommend using flashcards or making Quizlets with the state and the AP style abbreviation. By practicing and studying, it can quickly become second nature to know the proper form of writing states.

One of the most heartbreaking rules of AP-style writing for English grammar junkies like myself is the elimination of the Oxford comma. Yes, you read that right, no Oxford commas in AP style. Correct and consistent punctuation is highly valued in AP style, so it’s important to know the rules and get it right each time. 

These are some easy tips to remember with punctuation in AP Style:

• Don’t use a comma before the conjunction in a series: Amy, Ted and Riley; pink, blue and green.
• Use commas when setting off a name and location or name and age: Jane Austen, Richmond, Va. & Carrie Bradshaw, 31.
• Apostrophes usually show possession, so you shouldn’t use them to make acronyms and numbers plural. 
• For plural nouns ending in s, add only an apostrophe: the boys' toys; states' laws. 
• For singular common nouns ending in s, add 's: the hostess's table; the witness's testimony.
• Only use a hyphen for compound adjectives before the noun: well-known writer, full-time job, 30-year prison sentence.

The best way to grasp AP-style grammar is by memorizing and practicing. Grammar can be meticulous and hard to understand at first. 

Practice:

Try testing yourself with online AP grammar quizzes or practice writing sentences with AP-style grammar. You can also take old papers or emails you’ve written and practice rewriting them in AP style. Quizlets are also useful here and can help you memorize basic rules. 

One of the aspects of journalistic writing that separate from all other forms is quotes. The quotes and information that witnesses, officials, or lay people give truly make or break journalistic reporting. Knowing how to quote and attribute all sources properly is crucial to being fair and ethical in your writing. 

• Each person’s words are placed in a separate paragraph, with quotation marks at the beginning and end of each person’s speech.
• Periods and commas go within quotation marks.
• Dashes, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points go within the quotation marks when they apply to what’s being quoted. 
• For all people you quote, use full names on the first reference. On the second reference, use only the last name. 
• Adam Smith, a high school freshman, … later Smith shared … 
• Formal titles are only capitalized when they appear immediately before a name.
• Capitalize the first letter of a full-sentence quote. Smith said, “All of us were scared.” 

Practice:

Practice writing quotes and attributing sources for each. Always remember that when quoting somebody, you put exactly what they say and don’t twist the context of their words. 

Quotes are there to bolster the story and create a clearer picture of the vent for readers. Make sure that as you practice writing and attributing properly, you also act properly.

Mastering all the rules and expectations of AP style is next to impossible. The guidebook itself is roughly 600 pages of journalistic writing rules, definitions, and advice that get updated every other year. However, by understanding and practicing the basic concepts listed in this instructable, you’re one step closer to mastering the writing style. Starting from the headline and working our way down to the placement of quotation marks helps you understand the order and importance of AP format for readers.

The concepts listed in this instructable are the major and most commonly used for journalistic and AP writers. The purpose of AP style itself is to provide consistency, accuracy, and brevity to writing. 

The best tips for mastering this are taking good notes, making a cheat sheet to keep in a notebook or your desk, or using Quizlets. The very best piece of advice though, is to practice, practice, practice. You’re bound to make mistakes or put a date wrong and that’s OKAY! Don’t give up and keep trying your best. 

AP Tip:

If you feel ready to take the next step, invest in an AP Style Guide of your own and keep it handy in your writing space.

Learning a new way to write and use grammar is far from easy, but with repetition, determination, and practice, you’ll be writing like a Pulitzer Prize winner in no time!