Essential Associated Press rules of writing news articles for journalism and press releases for public relations

1. Associated Press style
Key points

2. Six common areas
• Numbers
• Names
• Dates and Times
• Addresses
• Punctuation
• Abbreviations

3. Numbers
• Spell out numbers zero through nine.
(two tables, eight legs)
• Double-digit numbers and above require numerals
(12 chairs, 100 questions, 25,000 concertgoers)
• Rules change again for high numbers, such as
millions and billions.
(7 million people, 1 billion hamburgers)

4. Exceptions to numbers rules
Always use numerals for:
• Ages (1 year old)
• Percentages (7 percent)
• Dimensions such as length, liquid, volume, weight
(3 miles long, 2 gallons, 8 pounds)
• Money (5 cents)
• Times (4 o’clock, 4:30 p.m.)
• Scores (5 to 2)

5. Names
• The first time you use a person’s name, give full
name and identification such as age or title.
(George Costanza, assistant to the traveling
secretary of the New York Yankees )
• The second and subsequent times you use a
person's name you just use the person’s last name:
male or female, child or adult. (Costanza)

6. Names
• Do not use Mr., Mrs., Miss or Ms. Almost
all news media today avoid courtesy titles.
For men it is easy to determine which to
use. For women it becomes complicated.
And usually it is not needed anyway, so
treat them all the same.

7. Names
• Earned titles, such as Dr. or Sgt. can be used with
the name on first reference, but generally are
deleted on subsequent references.
• An often misused title is that of a minister. On
first reference use “Rev. John Jones” or “ Rev. Dr.
John Jones.” Note that “reverend” is abbreviated,
the way “mister” or “doctor” would be. Do not use
“Dr.” with honorary doctorates.

8. Dates
• Think in terms of the date of publication, not the
date of writing. If the news happened seven days
before or will happen seven days after the date of
publication, use the day, but not the date.
• Use names of days, not "today," "yesterday" or
"tomorrow.
• If the date falls out of the 15-day range, use the
date, but not the day. (Jan. 2, June 15) Do not use
day and date.

9. Dates
Rules for years:
• If the event you are referring to happened one year
prior to publication date or will happen within the
year following the publication date, then don't use
the year.
• Exception: If you are moving from one date within
the range to another outside the range, you can use
the year for clarity.

10. Dates
Spell out days of week, Monday, Tuesday, etc.
Some months are abbreviated, others not:
• Jan.
• Feb.
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• Aug.
• Sept.
• Oct.
• Nov.
• Dec.

11. Times
• Always use lowercase a.m. and p.m. with
times. (The fair will be open from 9:30 a.m.
to 11:45 p.m.)
• Don’t use the words morning, afternoon,
evening or night to indicate the time of day
if you use a.m. or p.m. to indicate the time.

12. Times
• Don’t use the colon and zeros for times on
the hour. Thus, 9:00 a.m. is 9 a.m.
• Midnight is 12 a.m. and noon is 12 p.m.
To clarity, use noon and midnight to refer to
times that refer to 12 o’clock.

13. Addresses
• Use figures for numbers in addresses, but do not
use commas for numbers in the thousands.
(15100 Biscayne Blvd.)
• Abbreviate only three types of roadways with
numbered addresses:
Ave. Avenue
Blvd. Boulevard
St. Street
(Memory trick: only ABS)

14. Datelines
• Select cities do not have state names, such as
Miami, Los Angeles and Boston. Neither do some
international cities such as London, Paris and
Tokyo. See AP Stylebook for complete list.
• Do not use post office abbreviations for state
names. Florida is Fla., not FL. Do not abbreviate
Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Texas or
Utah. See AP Stylebook for complete list.

15. Punctuation
• The comma is omitted before Roman numerals or
before Jr. in names.
(Loudon Wainwright III, Martin Luther King Jr.)
• Quotation marks are used to enclose direct
quotations and the titles of books, plays, poems,
songs, speeches, lectures, etc. Names of larger
volumes, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, a
newspaper, the Bible, do not need quotation
marks. (“Grapes of Wrath”)

16. Punctuation
• Do not use quotation marks to give special
emphasis to a word unless it must be attributed to
a person.
(WRONG: Bill called her a “beauty.”)
(RIGHT: Hillary called him a “bastard.”)
• Omit the final comma before the “and” in a simple
series. (John, Paul, Ringo and George)

17. Punctuation
Sentence-ending or phrase-ending
punctuation marks --commas, periods,
question marks, exclamation points -- are
placed inside the closing quote marks.
(WRONG: Tom said, “I’ll see you later”!)
(RIGHT: “I’ll see you later!” said Tom.)

18. Abbreviations
• Spell out, do not abbreviate, on first
reference. The second and subsequent times
it is used you can use a shortened version, a
generic description or and abbreviation to
refer to it.
(Florida International University. On
second reference, the university.)

19. Abbreviations
• Some groups can be identified by abbreviation on
first use: FBI, NAACP, CIA, AIDS, ROTC, etc.
See AP Stylebook entries.
• When abbreviated letters can be read as a word,
periods can be omitted in most circumstances.
(NOW for National Organization of Women)