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.