Experience in AP Style or AP Style Required
Why, do so many job postings or Requests For Proposal demand an ability to use AP Style? Most often, it is short hand for, “You have to be able to write better than the average non-professional writer.”
I once heard someone say that photography and writing are the two professions that everyone thinks they can do. From the outside both of them look very simple. After all, all you have to do to get the same picture as Ansel Adams is stand in the same place with the same kind of camera at the same time of day in similar weather. Of course, that isn’t the point. No one cares if you can copy Ansel Adams. What makes him a great photographer is being able to see a great photograph where one hasn’t been seen before.
Writing is similar. Everyone can write. That isn’t the point. Describing what a murder scene looks like doesn’t make you Stephen King, and telling people why you think Microsoft sucks doesn’t make you a professional technology writer. A professional writer can hide their writing style. More specifically, they can write in the style that is requested. This skill is not common and therefore hard to quantify. Often, it falls into the, “I know it when I see it,” realm. So, when a client is paying good money for professional writing, they default to saying “AP Style” and hope it scares off the average non-professional. I’m not sure that it works, but I suppose it is better than nothing.
Learn AP Style
There are a lot of things in writing that can’t be taught, or that only come with experience, but the AP Style is not one of them. There is a book. Buy it, and flip through it a little. Don’t bother trying to read it cover to cover. It is a reference not a how-to book. Keep it on your desk next to where you write. As you go about your daily writings, don’t skip over those things you don’t quite know, and don’t guess. If you don’t know whether something should or should not be capitalized, look it up. When you don’t know if that phrase requires a hyphen, or is considered slang, look it up.
In the mean time, that doesn’t mean you can’t make yourself a better AP Style writer by doing some up front homework.
Here is your AP Stylebook Study Guide:
- Legislative Titles (how to reference politicians properly)
- Abbreviations and Acronyms (when you to use and not use)
- Time (AM, PM, AD, BC, and so on)
- Punctuation (a whole chapter, pay particular attention to comma)
- Organizations (look up ones you write about regularly)
- Race and Gender (which words to use in these touchy subjects)
- Titles (formal, royalty, judges, job titles, and more)
Then, when you come across someone who wants AP Style, tell them that you can do that. If you can write well and are willing to look up a few things, you aren’t lying.
What is AP Style
Spend even a modest amount of time around the world of professional writing, and you will come across the term AP Style. However, many people aren’t aware of what AP Style actually is.
What people usually forget is that The Associated Press is a real organization. It has buildings and employees and computers and sells products to produce a profit. The AP’s main product is news feeds or wire stories which are reprinted in newspapers all over the country. Take a look at your local paper and you’ll notice the author of each story is usually listed. For local stories or coverage that was actually researched and written by the newspaper’s staff you will see a name and maybe a location. The stories that say either AP or Associated Press were not actually written by anyone at the newspaper. They were bought by the newspaper from AP.
AP Style In Professional Writing
AP Style is actually a specific kind of writing. It is writing for news stories. However, many people, both freelancers and clients use the phrase AP Style as a way to describe a more formal writing style. AP Style is like what you read in the newspaper. For example, this article is not written in AP Style. All of the “you” makes this article informal.
But, AP Style is so much more than just formalization. There is an entire book called “The Associated Press Stylebook” that contains all manner of writing rules regarding terminology, phrasing, and punctuation.
Many otherwise knowledgeable professionals ask for AP Style to be used in writing for publication on non-news websites. Ironically, AP Style requires the use of spelling and punctuation that is opposite of what most websites want both for SEO purposes, and for what their readers want. For example, AP Style requires the use of a space between web and site for the term web site. However, most websites and blogs use the word website without a space. The same thing goes for email which AP requires to be written as e-mail (also for e-commerce, e-book, and e-business).
However, the AP Stylebook is a great resource for the professional writer. There are a million issues that come in writing everyday that may have never been considered before. For example, should part time be hyphenated? AP has a rule for that. It is hyphenated when used as a modifier as in part-time job. It is not hyphenated otherwise as in the waiter is part time.
Basically, the AP Stylebook is a reference for any writer who comes across those little nuances that just don’t seem to have solid answers grounded in even advanced grammatical knowledge. Everyone knows what NASA is, so do you have to spell it out the first time you use it? You probably know that it is President George Bush, but what about other politicians? How do you reference the Speaker of the House? What about other congressmen? When should it be capitalized? Should you say congresswoman? If so, is there such a thing as congresswomen if you are speaking about multiple female members of Congress? And, by the way, when should Congress be capitalized?
There are a million examples like this. The point is, that these aren’t the kinds of things you learned in English classes even if you went to graduate school. In fact, for every other person in the world except a professional writer, these are the kinds of things that no one cares about.
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