AP Style Writing Guidelines

By Brian Hale

When Hale Multimedia partnered with The Gering Citizen in 2010 and I went to work as a writer and assistant editor, I was given the opportunity to work with a mastermind of AP Style writing.

Citizen Co-Founder and final copy Editor Lisa Betz had a policy that we would get as many sets of eyes on every single word, paragraph, and punctuation mark we ever printed. That usually included 3 or 4 ‘assistant editors’ passing copy around and around. I remember times we would go through a second round, making sure everything was kosher with our AP Style Kingpin, 🤴 Jerry!

Mister Jerry Purvis taught us all the proper ways to abbreviate and / or spell out certain words and numbers. We were all honored to work with and learn from him.

For those of you who might be new to the area or to the news business, Jerry Purvis had a stellar career at both the Gering Citizen and the Star Herald.

I have always admired Jerry’s dedication and exceptional ability. In fact, in my opinion, Jerry is a Beast and a Hall of Fame caliber writer.

I did not find an article by Jerry on AP Style, but there is information out there, shown below in this excerpt.

[Excerpt] https://www.prnewsonline.com/ap-style-basics/#:~:text=The%20only%20time%20a%20state,Ohio%2C%20Texas%20and%20Utah).

state abbreviations/U.S.:

Always spell state names whether on their own or in conjunction with a city, town, village, etc. The only time a state is abbreviated is when used in a dateline. Eight states are never abbreviated (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah). Always spell United States on first reference, and use U.S.on second reference.

Use a two-letter postal code abbreviation only with a full address that includes zip code.

Do not abbreviate states in headlines or titles.

These are times when it is acceptable to use abbreviation:

Lists
Tables
Datelines
Photo captions
Political party affiliation
State abbreviations:

Ala. (AL) Md. (MD) N.D. (ND)
Ariz. (AZ) Mass. (MA) Okla. (OK)
Ark. (AR) Mich. (MI) Ore. (OR)
Calif. (CA) Minn. (MN) Pa. (PA)
Colo. (CO) Miss. (MS) R.I. (RI)
Conn. (CT) Mo. (MO) S.C. (SC)
Del. (DE) Mont. (MT) S.D. (SD)
Fla. (FL) Neb. (NE) Tenn. (TN)
Ga. (GA) Nev. (NV) Vt. (VT)
Ill. (IL) N.H. (NH) Va. (VA)
Ind. (IN) N.J. (NJ) Wash. (WA)
Kan. (KS) N.M. (NM) W.Va. (WV)
Ky. (KY) N.Y. (NY) Wis. (WI)
La. (LA) N.C. (NC) Wyo. (WY)


Examples:

The caravan traveled to Buffalo, New York.

The house is for sale at 462 Blueberry Lane, Andover, NY 13278.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a vote on the bill.

When used in a news article, the proper AP Style would be (CITY, Neb.) — followed by a double dash and then the story.

With that said, we don’t really particularly care for the AP Style, but I thought I would put it out there for everyone so that we can be consistent in our news coverage.

We hope this helps everyone to grow their local news business. If you find we are wrong about anything, let us know. Work together with us to do the best job delivering news to the people!

AP Style is so complex, there is a best selling book on it. Lol