,
,Published by
The Associated Press
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281
© 2024 by The Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher, excepting brief
quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for
inclusion in the media, including magazine, newspaper, broadcast or
online distribution.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-070484
ISBN: 978-0-917360-71-8
Design and content management by Stylebooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
Printed by Taylor Communications
Cover design by Katina Zulakis
Product management by Colleen Newvine
First Edition, August 1977
57th Edition, published in 2024.
,Foreword
When The Associated Press Stylebook was introduced in 1953,
it was a 60-page guide focused on matters of capitalization,
punctuation, grammar and spelling.
The audience was reporters and editors with the AP, a not-for-
profit newsgathering cooperative whose journalists today break
news and cover the world’s biggest stories through words and
compelling visuals.
Today’s Stylebook, at more than 500 pages, serves not only
journalists within AP and beyond, but also communicators in a wide
variety of fields and publications.
We still outline basic rules or guidance on grammar, punctuation,
word usage and journalistic style, and strive to reflect changes in
common usage.
But we have evolved to also offer guidelines on a number of
significant topics of our times. Among them: race, gender, climate
change, addiction, immigration, disabilities, sexual misconduct and
more. We also have added chapters on inclusive storytelling,
artificial intelligence, criminal justice, religion, health and science,
polls and surveys, technology, and data journalism.
While we remain committed to our classic, practical, spiral-bound
edition — now published every other year — AP Stylebook Online
has become the primary way professional writers and editors
access this definitive resource.
With the shift to a digital environment, our online format allows
AP Stylebook to remain a fundamental and easily accessible guide.
It is constantly updated to reflect changes in real time.
A team of top AP editors meets throughout the year to make
updates and improvements, many of which appear immediately in
Stylebook Online.
Contributions come from the AP staff, AP's member news
organizations and subscribers, journalism teachers and students,
specialists in a host of fields, and everyday readers. Indeed, some
of the changes that are talked about most have come at the
suggestion of Stylebook followers on social media.
We are honored to help writers and editors in all fields in their
,commitment to clear, fair and concise writing.
DAISY VEERASINGHAM
President and CEO
The Associated Press
,What’s New
This edition of the AP Stylebook features three new chapters,
two new sections — and a new primary dictionary.
We are making our first change in our primary dictionary in
decades, now turning to Merriam-Webster as our first source. We
don’t take such a switch lightly, as AP style is informed by the
spelling and styling recommended by our main dictionary. In recent
years, we have seen that Merriam-Webster is more up to date and
more in line with our approach.
In making the change to our new primary dictionary, we carefully
compared our guidance with Merriam-Webster’s. We believe that a
stylebook is different from a dictionary, and in doing this
comparison, we eliminated many terms already listed in Merriam-
Webster. We believe strongly that writers and editors need both a
stylebook and a dictionary, so we recommend you use your AP
Stylebook in concert with the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the
most complete guidance.
New chapters:
Criminal Justice chapter: This new chapter gives extensive
guidance on many issues related to crime and criminal justice
coverage, including language; mug shots and other photos; graphic
material; issues with initial reports by police and others;
interviewing victims and family members; source development; and
accountability journalism. It also pulls together entries that
previously were listed individually throughout the book, and
updates several of them.
New guidance includes the term child sexual abuse images
(not child porn); the terms used for people who are or were in
prison or jail; the terms juvenile and minor; and the terms sex
work and sex workers.
We now say the terms assault weapons or assault rifles may
be used in headlines and in first reference because that is how the
group of firearms has become commonly known. But high in the
story, give specifics about the types of guns at issue in any given
law or story. We also updated guidance on the term Taser.
Artificial Intelligence chapter: Provides caveats and best
, practices about covering artificial intelligence. For example: Don’t
use language that attributes human characteristics to generative AI
tools. Be aware that these tools often can be wrong or basically
make things up. Be aware that they are trained by people with
inherent biases that can affect the responses given by these bots.
Also, 11 key AI-related terms with definitions and explanations.
Technology chapter: Pulls together terms and guidance related
to technology and social media that previously had appeared
individually throughout the book. Many of those terms have been
updated. Among the updates: We’ve loosened the restrictions on
use of the term cyberattack. And we now say to avoid the terms
tweet or tweeted. Instead: posted on the social platform X or
posted on X.
In addition, we made a number of updates to the Social Media
Reporting chapter.
Two new sections:
Digital journalism: Describes best practices in digital journalism
and storytelling. For example: All elements that feed into a story,
photo or video — from the headline to the SEO title to the social
graphic for Instagram — should be viewed as an act of journalism
and meet the standards set by your newsroom.
Checklist for self-editing (and for reporting and writing):
Lists pointers to help make your reporting and writing much
stronger and make basic editing more thorough before reaching the
editor’s desk.
Highlights of other new or revised entries:
Climate change, climate crisis: Revised guidance allows the
term climate crisis, in addition to climate change, in broad
references to the general state of the climate. The entry gives
details on when one term or the other is better, and says to use the
term climate crisis sparingly. We also added a number of terms,
including community solar, direct air capture and energy
transition.
Race-related coverage: Updated guidance says to generally
use the term Native Americans in broad references when referring
to two or more people of different tribal affiliations within the
contiguous U.S. geographic boundaries. The term Indigenous
,Published by
The Associated Press
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281
© 2024 by The Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher, excepting brief
quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for
inclusion in the media, including magazine, newspaper, broadcast or
online distribution.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-070484
ISBN: 978-0-917360-71-8
Design and content management by Stylebooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
Printed by Taylor Communications
Cover design by Katina Zulakis
Product management by Colleen Newvine
First Edition, August 1977
57th Edition, published in 2024.
,Foreword
When The Associated Press Stylebook was introduced in 1953,
it was a 60-page guide focused on matters of capitalization,
punctuation, grammar and spelling.
The audience was reporters and editors with the AP, a not-for-
profit newsgathering cooperative whose journalists today break
news and cover the world’s biggest stories through words and
compelling visuals.
Today’s Stylebook, at more than 500 pages, serves not only
journalists within AP and beyond, but also communicators in a wide
variety of fields and publications.
We still outline basic rules or guidance on grammar, punctuation,
word usage and journalistic style, and strive to reflect changes in
common usage.
But we have evolved to also offer guidelines on a number of
significant topics of our times. Among them: race, gender, climate
change, addiction, immigration, disabilities, sexual misconduct and
more. We also have added chapters on inclusive storytelling,
artificial intelligence, criminal justice, religion, health and science,
polls and surveys, technology, and data journalism.
While we remain committed to our classic, practical, spiral-bound
edition — now published every other year — AP Stylebook Online
has become the primary way professional writers and editors
access this definitive resource.
With the shift to a digital environment, our online format allows
AP Stylebook to remain a fundamental and easily accessible guide.
It is constantly updated to reflect changes in real time.
A team of top AP editors meets throughout the year to make
updates and improvements, many of which appear immediately in
Stylebook Online.
Contributions come from the AP staff, AP's member news
organizations and subscribers, journalism teachers and students,
specialists in a host of fields, and everyday readers. Indeed, some
of the changes that are talked about most have come at the
suggestion of Stylebook followers on social media.
We are honored to help writers and editors in all fields in their
,commitment to clear, fair and concise writing.
DAISY VEERASINGHAM
President and CEO
The Associated Press
,What’s New
This edition of the AP Stylebook features three new chapters,
two new sections — and a new primary dictionary.
We are making our first change in our primary dictionary in
decades, now turning to Merriam-Webster as our first source. We
don’t take such a switch lightly, as AP style is informed by the
spelling and styling recommended by our main dictionary. In recent
years, we have seen that Merriam-Webster is more up to date and
more in line with our approach.
In making the change to our new primary dictionary, we carefully
compared our guidance with Merriam-Webster’s. We believe that a
stylebook is different from a dictionary, and in doing this
comparison, we eliminated many terms already listed in Merriam-
Webster. We believe strongly that writers and editors need both a
stylebook and a dictionary, so we recommend you use your AP
Stylebook in concert with the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the
most complete guidance.
New chapters:
Criminal Justice chapter: This new chapter gives extensive
guidance on many issues related to crime and criminal justice
coverage, including language; mug shots and other photos; graphic
material; issues with initial reports by police and others;
interviewing victims and family members; source development; and
accountability journalism. It also pulls together entries that
previously were listed individually throughout the book, and
updates several of them.
New guidance includes the term child sexual abuse images
(not child porn); the terms used for people who are or were in
prison or jail; the terms juvenile and minor; and the terms sex
work and sex workers.
We now say the terms assault weapons or assault rifles may
be used in headlines and in first reference because that is how the
group of firearms has become commonly known. But high in the
story, give specifics about the types of guns at issue in any given
law or story. We also updated guidance on the term Taser.
Artificial Intelligence chapter: Provides caveats and best
, practices about covering artificial intelligence. For example: Don’t
use language that attributes human characteristics to generative AI
tools. Be aware that these tools often can be wrong or basically
make things up. Be aware that they are trained by people with
inherent biases that can affect the responses given by these bots.
Also, 11 key AI-related terms with definitions and explanations.
Technology chapter: Pulls together terms and guidance related
to technology and social media that previously had appeared
individually throughout the book. Many of those terms have been
updated. Among the updates: We’ve loosened the restrictions on
use of the term cyberattack. And we now say to avoid the terms
tweet or tweeted. Instead: posted on the social platform X or
posted on X.
In addition, we made a number of updates to the Social Media
Reporting chapter.
Two new sections:
Digital journalism: Describes best practices in digital journalism
and storytelling. For example: All elements that feed into a story,
photo or video — from the headline to the SEO title to the social
graphic for Instagram — should be viewed as an act of journalism
and meet the standards set by your newsroom.
Checklist for self-editing (and for reporting and writing):
Lists pointers to help make your reporting and writing much
stronger and make basic editing more thorough before reaching the
editor’s desk.
Highlights of other new or revised entries:
Climate change, climate crisis: Revised guidance allows the
term climate crisis, in addition to climate change, in broad
references to the general state of the climate. The entry gives
details on when one term or the other is better, and says to use the
term climate crisis sparingly. We also added a number of terms,
including community solar, direct air capture and energy
transition.
Race-related coverage: Updated guidance says to generally
use the term Native Americans in broad references when referring
to two or more people of different tribal affiliations within the
contiguous U.S. geographic boundaries. The term Indigenous
