Sample Staff Writing Style Manual

These Sample Style Policies were written by:

by Jacob Steinmetz
J425 class participant Fall 2001

For all other style considerations and questions, please refer to the latest edition of The Associated Press Stylebook.  A copy should be kept in our classroom resource bookcase, the school library, the county library and many local bookstores.

Common Style Rules That You May Come Across In Your Writing:

Businesses:  When using full business titles abbreviate Bros., Co., Corp., Inc., Ltd. Don’t place a comma before Inc. or Ltd. (Warner Bros., Johnson Stone Co., Gap Ltd., Welch & Co. Inc.

Colleges: When abbreviating the names of colleges and universities, don’t use periods. (IU, UM, ISU, BSU, OSU, IUPUI, UCLA, USC)

Days of the week: Always spell out the days of the week: (Monday, Tuesday, not Mon. or Tues.)

Foreign countries: Never abbreviate. (England, Ireland, not Eng. or Ire.)

Measurements: Use figures and spell out words such as inches, feet, yards, etc., to indicate depth, height, length and width.  (He is 6 feet 3 inches tall.)

Money: Use the $ (dollar symbol) and decimal system for amounts larger than one dollar.  ($1.79, $9.50)  Omit zeroes and the decimal point when sums are whole numbers. ($1, $5)  Spell out the word cents, using numerals for amounts less than a dollar. (45 cents (not $.45 or forty-five cents)

Months: Abbreviate names of months of more than five letters only when it’s followed by the date.  These months are never abbreviated: March, April, May, June or July. (Jan. 1, Feb. 14, or Dec. 25)  When the year is added the rule does not change.  (Feb. 2, 2002; May 1–8, 1997)

Always give the date in figures (1, 2, 3…) Never use ordinal numbers (incorrect: Oct. 31st, July Fourth, Dec. 25th) with the date.  (correct: Nov. 3, April 1, or Dec. 25)

Ordinal Numbers: Always Spell out and capitalize First through Ninth when used as street names but use figures with two letters for 10th and above (2125 Fifth St., Third and Smith Pike.)

Organizations: The proper name of an organization is always written out when making the first reference. (Future Farmers of America or National Honors Society) The title of an organization may be abbreviated (without periods) on the second reference and anywhere after if it is be clearly understood by readers. (FFA, NHS, EHS, PTA, FBI, CIA)

Percent: Is one word and is always spelled out.  (correct 95 percent, incorrect 95 per cent or 95%).

Political parties: Abbreviate when used incidentally or in election statistics.  (Sen. Richard Lugar, D-Ind., said Democrats were ready for the election.)

States: Always abbreviate names of states when used after the names of cities and towns. Never use postal abbreviations to identify states. The state name is needed when the city has the same name as another city (Nashville, Ind., and Nashville, Tenn.), or when referring to unfamiliar cities outside the home state. Use the following abbreviations:

Ala. Fla. Mass. N.C. Pa. Wash.

Ariz. Ga. Mich. N.H. R.I. W. Va.

Ark. Ill. Minn. N.J. S.C. Wis.

Calif. Ind. Miss. N.M. S.D. Wyo.

Colo. Kan. Mo. N.Y. Tenn.

Conn. Ky. Mont. N.D. Tex.

Del. La. Neb. Okla. Vt.

D.C. Md. Nev. Ore. Va.

Never abbreviate Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio or Utah.

Street addresses: Abbreviate Ave., Blvd., St. only when used with a specific and numbered address. (21 S. Rogers St.)  All similar words are always spelled out: Drive, Lane, Road, Terrace, etc.  Always abbreviate compass points (N., S.W., etc.) in addresses only when used with specific street numbers.

Time of day: (a.m.) and (p.m.) are always abbreviated using lowercase letters and periods. Eliminate unnecessary figures and redundancies  (6 a.m., not 6:00 a.m.; 9 at night, not 9 p.m. at night)

Titles: Abbreviate only the titles senator, representative, governor, doctor and the reverend before a full name.  (Sen. Evan Bayh, Rep. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Frank O’ Bannon, Dr. John Doe, the Rev. Martin Luther King) Do not abbreviate or capitalize titles which follow names: Jim Young, senator; Kelly Jones, editor; Dirk Ackerman, principal.

Common Do’s and Don’ts Of The Capitalization World:

§ Always capitalize proper names. (Edgewood High School, Kyle Smithton)

§ Always capitalize names of mascots and athletic teams,  (Mustangs, Hoosiers, Patriots, Panthers) group names, (National Honors Society) awards, (Pulitzer Prize) documents, (Constitution) geographic locations, (the South, the Southeast) and all other proper nouns.

§ Capitalize geographic names and sections of the country. (Southern California, the Mississippi River, Lake Monroe, the West)

§ Always capitalize languages. (English, French, German)

§ Capitalize the name of academic departments when they are being used as proper nouns or adjectives.  (The Indiana University English Department is one of the best in America., the history department) 

§ Capitalize the name of the club as well as the word club.  (Spanish Club, Marketing Club)

§ Capitalize titles when they come before names but not when they follow names.  (Vice Principal Bill Atkinson, Bill Atkinson, vice principal)

§ Capitalize holidays and special school events.  (Christmas, Valentines Day, Homecoming, Senior Prom, Senior Day)

§ Don’t capitalize school subjects unless you are referring to a specific class.  (Algebra, math, U.S. History, history class)

§ Don’t capitalize junior varsity, varsity or freshman when referring to names of sports teams within the school.  (junior varsity tennis, freshman football)

§ Don’t capitalize names of classes.  (senior class, junior girls, sophomore boys, freshman class)

§ Don’t capitalize descriptive or occupational words used as a title.  (actor Brad Pitt, right fielder Sammy Sosa)

§ Don’t capitalize modifiers such as former or the late.  (the late Dr. Martin Luther King, former President Bush)

Common Do’s and Don’ts Of The Punctuation World:

• Always place periods inside quotation marks.  (“We went to the game.”)

• Use a comma to precede a direct quote in quotation marks.  (The coach said, “Our team is really strong this year.”)

• Always place commas inside quotation marks.  (“We finally won,” Johnny Davis said.)

• A semicolon or a colon always goes outside the quotation marks.  (The school is suffering from student “burn-out”; it is caused from overworked students.)

• A question mark or an exclamation mark belongs inside the quotation marks only if it belongs to the actual quoted material.  (Have you seen “The Rock”? Sally asked, “Did you see the game Friday night?”)  

• Always use quotation marks around the titles of plays, speeches, short stories, songs and articles within a publication.  (“Hound Dog”, “The Road Not Taken”)

• An apostrophe is used in place of omitted letters and figures.  (’80s, Rock ’n’ Roll, the roaring ‘20’s)

• Only use an apostrophe to indicate feet and quote marks to indicate inches when needed for things such as a roster or a list.  (6’10", 5’5”)

• Form the possessive of a plural word ending in an s by adding only an apostrophe.  (the girls’ gym, the boys’ locker room)

• Form the possessive of a plural word not ending in an s by adding an apostrophe and an s.  (the school’s bus, the kid’s car)

• Use an apostrophe with an s to form the plural of single letters.  (I got three D’s on my report card.)

• Use a hyphen to compound numbers and fractions.  (thirty-fourth, one-seventh, two-thirds)

• Use a hyphen when joining two or more adjectives that express a single concept.  (full-time job, know-it-all, well-known)

• Don’t use a colon after verbs such as are, included or were.  (The nominees are Sally Johnson, Rachel Harris and Jackie Lewis.)

• Don’t use periods at the end of abbreviations for schools of organizations.  (EHS, NHS, OVHS, BHSN)

• Don’t include a comma before the and in a simple series.  (We bought apples, oranges and bananas.)

• Don’t put quotation marks around slang terms.  (incorrect He thought that the new car was really “cool.”)

• Don’t use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns.  (yours, his, hers, theirs, ours, its)

• Don’t use a hyphen after an adverb that ends in –ly.  (easily forgotten)

• Rarely use the exclamation mark.  Only use it when it is part of a quote and the person actually said the quote with some emphasis.  (“We finally won a game!”)

• Rarely use a dash mark in writing stories.  The dash is used to mark a longer pause.  If you do use a dash, include a space before and after a dash mark. 

Common Spelling Errors That You May Come Across:

If you have any question about how a word is spelled, please take the time to look up the correct spelling in a dictionary.  There are several dictionaries in the room and there are many more down in the library.  A dictionary is one of you best tools to have so you may want to invest in one of your own.  Remember that misspellings and common errors like the ones that are in these pages reflect negatively on our publication and your work specifically.

• a lot, absence, adviser, advisory, all right, alumna (female singular), alumnae (female plural), alumni (male or female plural), alumnus (male singular),
• backfield, baseman, bookkeeping, business,
• cafeteria, captain, chaperon, chemistry, choir, chorus, commencement, committee, council, counselor, curriculum, custodian,
• deceive, defendant, deferred, dependent, descend, desirable, difference, dilemma, disappearance, disastrous, discipline, disease, dispensable, dissatisfied, dominant,
• ecstasy, efficiency, eighth, emperor, entirely, equivalent, especially, exaggerate, existence, exuberance,
• fallacious, fallacy, feasible, February, fictitious, financially, forcibly, foreign, forfeit, foresee, fulfill, fundamentally,
• government, governor, grievous, guarantee, guidance,
• handkerchief, happily, harass, heinous, hemorrhage, heroes, hesitancy, hoping, humorous, hypocrisy, hypocrite,
• idiosyncrasy, incidentally, insurance, irresistible,
• judicial,
• knowledge,
• laboratory, legitimate, lenient, license, lieutenant,
• maintenance, manageable, maneuver, millennium, millionaire, miniature, mischievous, misspelled, mosquito, mosquitoes, murmur, nowadays, nuisance,
• obedience, opponent, optimism,
• parallel, parliament, peculiar, penetrate, perceive, permissible, permitted, perseverance, possess, possessive, potato, potatoes, preference, preferred, preparation, prevalent, psychology, publicly,
• quarantine, questionnaire, quizzes,
• receipt, receive, reminiscence, restaurant, rhythm, rhythmical, roommate,
• secede, seize, sergeant, skiing, soliloquy, sophomore, spontaneous, strenuous, stubbornness, subordinate, subtle, supersede, susceptible, syllable,
• tangible, temperature, therefore, thorough, though, through, till, tomorrow, tourniquet, twelfth,
• unanimous, unnecessary, until,
• vacuum, vigilant,
• Wednesday, wherever

Works Referenced for this stylesheet:

Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. New York: The Associated Press, 2001

Rolnicki, Tom E., C. Dow Tate and Sherri Taylor. Scholastic Journalism. 10th ed. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2001