AP Stylebook Tips

Academic departments

Lowercase academic departments unless they are proper nouns or adjectives, or part of an official, full formal name.

Academic titles

Capitalize and spell out formal academic titles (such as chancellor, professor, or chair) when they immediately precede a name, but lowercases them when they stand alone or follow a name.

Addresses

• Use figures for address numbers

• Abbreviate specific street types and compass directions only when paired with a numbered address

• Spell out numbered streets from First through Ninth

Composition titles

Use double quotation marks and specific capitalization rules.

Datelines

Feature the city name in all-capital letters, followed by the state, country, or territory, and an em dash before the story text

Email

Email with no hyphen.

Fewer, less

Use fewer for individual, countable items.

Use less for bulk, mass, or continuous quantities.

Holidays and holy days

The names of holidays and holy days should always be capitalized.

Independence Day

Acceptable names for the holiday are Fourth of July, July Fourth, and Independence Day.

Lists, bulleted lists

Requires introductory phrasing, parallel construction, capitalization of the first word, and specific rules for ending punctuation.

Months

Abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec.

Not abbreviated: March, April, May, June, July

Numerals

Spell out numbers zero through nine and use numerals (figures) for 10 and above.

Percent, percentage, percentage points

Use the percent sign (%) with numerals in most cases, and write out "percentage points" using figures for the numerical value.

State names

Abbreviated: Pa.

Spell out the names of all 50 U.S. states when they appear in the body of a story.

Times

Use numbers with lowercase “a.m.” or “p.m.” and omit “:00” for exact hours.

Titles

• Capitalize a formal title only when it directly precedes a person’s name.

• Lowercase a title when it follows a person’s name.

• Lowercase general descriptions that do not denote a formal office or authority.

• Abbreviate specific formal titles only when they appear directly before a name.

Burglary, larceny, robbery, theft

• Burglary: Entering a building illegally and remaining unlawfully with the intention of committing a crime.

• Larceny: The legal term for the wrongful taking of property, with nonlegal equivalents being stealing or theft.

• Robbery: The use of violence or the threat of violence in committing a larceny.

• Theft: Describes a larceny that did not involve threat, violence, or plundering.

Punctuation

Use only an apostrophe at the end of a singular proper name ending in “S” to show possession.