Learning Associated Press style may not be the most glamorous aspect of being a journalist, but it's necessary. Why? Because the vast majority of news outlets in the U.S. follow AP style. Here are some tips for learning AP style as quickly as possible.
Use the Book: Sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many beginning reporters try to guess the correct AP style when writing their stories. Here's a newsflash: Guessing won't work. Get into the habit of using your AP Stylebook every time you write a story. By doing so you'll become more familiar with it and know how to find things more quickly.
Always Check Numbers: Anything involving numbers will have definite format in AP style. So anytime there's a number in your story - a date, a dollar amount, a street address, and so on - get out the stylebook and check the correct usage.
Read AP Stories: Obviously, articles written by The Associated Press follow AP style. So get into the habit of reading AP stories every day and you'll find correct usage for things like titles, dates and percentages are bound to sink in.
Remember One Example: An easy way to remember specific AP style points is to think of one main example for each point. For instance, job titles are capitalized when they appear before someone's name. To remember that, think of this: President Barack Obama. Need to remember how to write movie titles? Think of your favorite film written in correct AP style. In my case, that would be "Star Wars."
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat: You know how shampoo bottles tell you to lather, rinse and repeat? Learning AP style is simply a matter of repetition. The more you check the stylebook the more you'll start to memorize the main points of AP style. Do it enough and pretty soon you'll find you don't need to check the stylebook every time you write a story.
But as Han Solo told Luke, don't get cocky: Even experienced editors often find they need to check their stylebooks for less-common AP style points.
