The gold standard of style books.
The Associated Press publishes an updated edition every May. This year’s edition includes a couple hundred changes, updates and revised thinking on style and usage. The new edition replaces my older one of six years ago, which means twelve hundred changes since then.
These six hundred pages reflect the collective wisdom of the AP staff and stylebook readers, writes Gary Pruitt, president, in the foreword. In addition to rules on grammar, punctuation, usage and journalism style, this book also reflects changes in our common language. And that gives this book a running commentary on our culture with each annual update. Every update meets the goal of fair, clear and concise writing.
Among the couple hundred new and modified entries, the book revises its discussions of “marijuana” and “medical marijuana.” This year “bestseller” and “bestselling” lose their hyphens. Meanwhile, “babysit” and “budtender” also become solid words. And “STEM” now becomes acceptable on first reference in articles about science, technology, engineering and math education. A new four-page section discusses race-related coverage.
Also, a new eight-page section on health and science debuts in this edition. Critical thinking means questioning rather than accepting a claim, writes the AP. Ask for evidence. “Anyone can write a recap,” but a journalist helps readers understand the meaning and impact. Writers translate between people who speak the language of science and those who don’t.
That’s a sample of what’s new this year. A hundred ninety other changes live between the pages.
Some people complain that the AP takes too long to reflect changes already in use. “Email” stands as one example, where the AP took forever to finally drop the hyphen. But this year, the stylebook runs ahead of the dictionary with such terms as “budtender” and “STEM” compared to Webster’s New World, which is the AP’s official source.
Last month I bought the new edition directly from the publisher. Bookshops sell it perfect bound. But for the first time since leaving a newsroom I bought the official spiral bound edition, which opens flat on the desk.
My first published writing appeared in the high school newspaper, where I took journalism for three years. From there I wrote news for the college radio station before serving as a writer and photographer in Vietnam. Then I worked twenty-two years as a news writer and editor, stringing for the AP along the way. Writing over the years with a dictionary and the AP stylebook at hand.