If you happen to love or detest the sometimes-tedious job of going over your writing with a fine-tooth comb to make sure correct grammar, think about your self in good firm. We’re an empathetic group of linguaphiles over right here with an knowledgeable in tow to assist navigate AP model updates and maneuver by means of the modifications.
Mignon Fogarty, higher generally known as Grammar Woman of the Fast and Soiled Suggestions Podcast Community, shared her experience throughout a latest Ragan webinar with the nitty-gritty of AP model, together with the serial comma, headline model, pronouns and extra.
Serial comma
Positive, among the extra hotly contested debates of the place you stand with sizzling canine condiment preferences (ketchup all the way in which) are akin to writers’ factors of rivalry that always circle again as to whether or to not use the nice outdated serial comma, additionally referred to as the Oxford comma.
AP model doesn’t use the serial comma in easy lists like “pink, white and blue.” Nevertheless, it’s extra of a mode desire than a hard-fast rule, Fogarty says, although many deal with it like a Golden Rule.
There are some causes to make use of the serial comma, nevertheless — principally when it provides extra readability.
Do use a serial comma when collection parts include conjunctions.
For instance, AP Fashion would phrase the next sentence this fashion: “I like peanut butter and jelly, ham and eggs, and macaroni and cheese.”
“You’ll use a comma earlier than the ‘and’ that comes within the final ingredient,” Fogarty stated. “You do that even when a kind of objects accommodates an ‘and.’”
Headlines and numbers
Partaking headlines ought to be in sentence case and current tense.
When writing headlines, per AP model, capitalize solely the primary letter of the primary phrase (plus correct nouns) as you’ll in a normal sentence, minus the interval, Fogarty stated. Query marks are OK.
When utilizing a colon, the primary phrase after a colon in a headline is capitalized. Facet observe, in physique copy, you solely capitalize after the colon if it’s a correct noun or a whole sentence -– in any other case, no capitalization.
Headlines all the time use Arabic numerals even when the quantity is the primary phrase (besides zero).
Examples of utilizing numbers in headlines: are “7 methods to high a potato” and “Smith will get 3 years in jail.”
That is in distinction to the overall rule for physique copy, Fogarty stated, which is to jot down out Arabic numerals lower than 10 and use Arabic numerals for the remaining.
When writing massive numbers in headlines, much less is usually extra as “thousands and thousands” and “billions” might be shortened to $5M or $5.5B with a capital “M” and “B” and no areas in between.
Pronouns
Fogarty describes private pronoun use as an “lively space of language change,” which proceed to be up to date all through AP Fashion as attitudes towards gender change.
For instance, it was once appropriate to jot down, “zookeepers should defend his animals,” defaulting to the male pronoun as default. Nevertheless, now AP model says it’s higher to rewrite as, “zookeepers should defend their animals,” utilizing the gender-neutral singular “their,” or “a zookeeper should defend the animals” eradicating the necessity for a pronoun altogether.
For individuals who don’t determine as male or feminine, AP permits the singular “they” however doesn’t use newer pronouns like “xe” or “ze,” based on Fogarty’s presentation.
Fogarty recommends that communicators clarify that the particular person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun whereas being clear that the terminology doesn’t indicate it’s multiple particular person.
Sherri Kolade is a author at Ragan Communications. When she isn’t together with her household, she enjoys watching Alfred Hitchcock-style movies, studying and constructing an authentically curated life that features greater than often discovering one thing deliciously fried. Comply with her on LinkedIn. Have an excellent PR story concept? E-mail her at sherrik@ragan.com.
