Associated Press Associated Press Style in Style in Military Journalism Military Journalism Using the AP Style Guide Using the AP Style Guide to create a uniform style to create a uniform style in military publications in military publications SFC Debbi Newton
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Using the AP Style Guide to Using the AP Style Guide to create a uniform style in create a uniform style in
military publicationsmilitary publications
SFC Debbi Newton
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Objectives
• Become familiar with basic elements of AP Style• Including:
Rank and TitleUnit identificationDates, times & locations
• Become familiar with basic AP punctuation• Including:
CommasQuotation marks
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
CAPITALIZATION
•Capitalize services when referring to U.S. forces; do not capitalize when referring to foreign military (i.e., U.S.
Army, Iraqi army).
•Capitalize Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine when referring to U.S. Forces (Per U.S. Army, capitalize Family
when referring to U.S. military families; Per CT PAO, capitalize Veteran and Retiree.
•Capitalize a rank or title when it preceded a name; use lowercase when it follows a name or stands alone.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
CAPITALIZATION, CONT.
•Capitalize all proper nouns to include names of people, organizations, operations and exercises.
•Capitalize common nouns only if they are part of a proper noun, such as a title or an organization.
•Do not use all capital letters for anything but acronyms.
•Do not capitalize a term just because it is assigned an acronym.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Enlisted RankArmyPrivate (E1 & E2)Private First ClassSpecialistCorporalSergeantStaff SergeantSergeant First ClassMaster SergeantFirst SergeantSergeant MajorCommand Sergeant Major
AP StylePvt.Pfc.Spc.Cpl.Sgt.Staff Sgt.Sgt. 1st ClassMaster Sgt.1st Sgt.Sgt. Maj.Command Sgt. Maj.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
When citing dates and times in print journalism, DO NOT USE “today” or “tonight”.Instead, use days of the week.Days of the week are always capitalized, and are never abbreviated.
EXAMPLE
At 3 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 12, all employees will attend the required briefing.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismCities & States
Cities are always capitalized.
States are capitalized and spelled out unless used in conjunction with a postal address at which time postal abbreviations are used. Two-,Three- or Four-letter state abbreviations are ONLY used in datelines.
Always spell out Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.
EXAMPLES
The Connecticut National Guard headquarters armoryis the Gov. William O’Neill Armory in Hartford,
Connecticut.
The William A. O’Neill Armory is located at 360 Broad Street,
Hartford, CT 06105
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Datelines
Datelines on stories should contain a city name, entirely in capital letters, followed in most cases by the name of the state, country or territory where the city is located.
States should be abbreviated using the 2-, 3- or 4-letter abbreviation (not the postal abbreviation). Always spell out Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.
Postal abbreviations for states that are always spelled out: Alaska (AK), Hawaii (HI), Idaho (ID), Iowa (IA), Maine (ME), Ohio (OH), Texas (TX) and Utah (UT). Also District of Columbia (DC).
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismPunctuation
The Associated Press Style GuideContains 12 pages of guidance
on the use of punctuation.
The Associated Press also publishes a book on punctuationthat contains more than 30 pages on the comma alone. Key point to
remember on commas: DO NOT use a comma when listing similar items before and. EX.: The color guard was made up of Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors
and Marines.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismPunctuation
Some brief notes on commas …
Use to separate items in a list:The United States flag is red, white and blue.
Use to separate sentence fragments that can be removed withoutchanging the meaning of the sentence:
When Joe, the eldest of three children, began smoking …
Use before “but” or “and”:Several Soldiers passed the APFT, but those who failed …
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Quotation Marks & Attribution
“ … “
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismAttribution
Assigning to a cause or sourceIn journalism, attribution refers to the assigning of information to a particular source.
You are NOTNOT the subject matter expert
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Quotation Marks & Attribution
Quotation marks are used to identify:
Direct quotes (attribution)Book or movie titlesNicknamesIronyUnfamiliar terms – first reference only
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismDirect Quote
“We had a great sense of unit morale while we weredeployed,” said Staff Sgt. Johnson.
Indirect Quote
Staff Sgt. Johnson said that unit morale was very highduring the unit’s deployment.
Exact wording and context used by the quoted source.
Paraphrasing of what the source said. You get the same informationand context as the original quote, but without the original wording.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism
Book & Movie Titles
Nicknames
Irony
Unfamiliar Terms
We all watched “Black Hawk Down” last night.
George “Babe” Ruth hit 714 home runs as a professional baseball player.
According to the report, some unit members received “special” treatment.
Following years of trial and error, Dr. Emmitt Brown was finally able toachieve time travel through his invention of the “flux capacitor”. The fluxcapacitor is now the standard for all time travel devices.
AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalism