ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) STYLE GUIDELINES

By Leslie Young
All information taken from the
Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law

State Name Guidelines:

STANDING ALONE: Spell out the names of the 50 states when they stand alone in the
text.

ABBREVIATIONS REQUIRED: There are specific times when one should use abbreviations:
in conjunction with the name of a city, town, village, or military base in most datelines.
in conjunction with the name of a city, county, town, or military base in text.
in short-form listing of party affiliation: D-Ala, R-Mont.

EIGHT STATES NOT ABBREVIATED: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio,
Texas, and Utah. Here is a helpful hint to remember: spell out the two states that are not
part of the continental United States, and spell out the other states that have five or
fewer letters.

PUNCTIONATION: 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.

MISCELLANEOUS: Use New York state when necessary to distinguish the state from
New York City. Use state of Washington or Washington state when necessary to
distinguish the state from the District of Columbia.

STATE ABBREVIATIONS:
Ala. La. N.Y. W.Va.
Ariz. Md. N.C. Wis.
Ark. Mass. N.D. Wyo.
Calif. Mich. Okla.
Colo. Minn. Ore.
Conn. Miss. Pa.
Del. Mo. R.I.
Fla. Mont. S.C.
Ga. Neb. S.D.
Ill. Nev. Tenn.
Ind. N.H. Vt.
Kan. N.J. Va.
Ky. N.M. Wash.
Abbreviation Guidelines:

BEFORE A NAME: Abbreviate the following titles when used before a full name outside
direct quotations: Dr., Gov., Lt. Gov., Mr., Mrs., Rep., the Rev., Sen., and certain military
designations.

AFTER A NAME: Abbreviate junior (Jr.) or senior (Sr.) after an individual’s name.
Abbreviate company (Co.), corporation (Corp.), incorporated (Inc.), and limited (Ltd.)
when used after the name of a corporate entity.

WITH DATES OR NUMERALS: Use abbreviations for A.D., B.C., a.m., p.m., No., and
certain months when used with the day of the month.

IN NUMBERED ADDRESSES: Abbreviate avenue (Ave.), boulevard (Blvd.), and street

(St.) in numbered addresses: He lives on Pennsylvania Avenue. He lives at
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

ACCEPTABLE BUT NOT REQUIRED: Some organizations and government agencies

are widely recognized by their initials: CIA, FBI, GOP. If the organization is not widely
known, do not use the abbreviation for the first mention of the organization. Instead,
write out the entire name of the organization and put the abbreviation in parentheses.
Then, you can use the abbreviation for the duration of the article.

Capitalization Guidelines:

PROPER NOUNS: Capitalize nouns that constitute the unique identification for a
specific person, place, or thing.

PROPER NAMES: Capitalize common nouns such as party, river, street, and west when
they are an integral part of the full name for a person, place, or thing:
Democratic Party, Mississippi River, Fleet Street, West Virginia.

DERIVATIVES: Capitalize words that are derived from a proper noun and still depend
on that noun for their meaning: American, Christian, English, French, Marxism, and
Shakespearean.

COMPOSITIONS: Capitalize the principal words in the names of books, movies, plays,
poems, operas, songs, radio and television programs, works of art, etc.

TITLES: Capitalize formal titles when they are used immediately before a name.
Do not capitalize formal titles when they are used alone or in constructions that set them
off from a name by commas.
Dateline Guidelines:

Datelines on stories should contain a city name, entirely in capital letters, followed by the name
of the state, country, or territory where the city is located.

DOMESTIC DATELINES: Certain cities do not require that states follow them because
of the frequency of the city’s appearance in the news, the population of its metropolitan
region, population of the city, the uniqueness of its name, and experience that has shown
the name to be almost synonymous with the state or nation where it is located.

NO STATE WITH THE FOLLOWING CITIES:

Atlanta Milwaukee
Baltimore Minneapolis
Boston New Orleans
Chicago New York
Cincinnati Oklahoma City
Cleveland Philadelphia
Dallas Phoenix
Denver Pittsburgh
Detroit St. Louis
Honolulu Salt Lake City
Houston San Antonio
Indianapolis San Diego
Las Vegas San Francisco
Los Angeles Seattle
Miami Washington

FOREIGN CITIES: These foreign locations stand alone in datelines:

Beijing Mexico City

Berlin Monaco
Djibouti Montreal
Geneva Moscow
Gibraltar Ottowa
Guatemala City Paris
Havana Quebec
Hong Kong Rome
Jerusalem San Marino
Kuwait Singapore
London Tokyo
Luxembourg Toronto
Macau Vatican City

In addition, use UNITED NATIONS alone, without an N.Y. designation, in

stories from U.N. headquarters.
Numbers Guidelines:

LARGE NUMBERS: When large numbers must be spelled out, use a hyphen to connect
a word ending in –y to another word; do not use commas between other separate words
that are part of one number: twenty; thirty; thirty-one; one hundred forty-three; one
million two hundred seventy-six thousand five hundred eighty-seven.

SENTENCE STARTERS: Spell out a number at the beginning of a sentence: Twenty-

eight students are enrolled in this class.

CASUAL USES: Spell out casual expressions: I’ve seen that movie a thousand times.

PROPER NAMES: Use words or numerals according to an organization’s practice:

20th Century Fox, Twentieth Century Fund, Big Ten.

FIGURES VS. WORDS:

Spell out first through ninth when they indicate sequence in time or location:
first base, the First Amendment, first in line.
Starting with 10th, use figures.

Use 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. when the sequence has been assigned in forming names.
Most of the time, this usage will occur in geographic, military, and political
designations such as 1st Ward, 7th Fleet, and 1st Sgt.

OTHER USES: For uses not covered by these listings, spell out whole numbers below
10, and use figures for 10 and above.

Punctuation Guidelines

COMMAS: Use a comma to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before
the conjunction in a simple series: the flag is red, white, and blue or he would nominate
Tom, Dick, or Harry.