The Associate Press Stylebook...and ME!!

     There aren't very many books that I actually carry around and reference on a very regular basis.  The AP Stylebook is my new companion!  I used it a few semesters ago in my Media Writing class, but not nearly as often as I use it now.  When we were told that we needed to really get to know this book, I had no clue what that really meant until this week.  I have surprisingly enjoyed flipping through the pages, reading sections, highlighting things and understanding all that this book really has to offer.

     I first went through our list of words and items that we were supposed to "familiarize ourselves" with and highlighted them throughout the book.  When it came time to doing the assignment, it really helped.  Some of the words that have always tripped me up, were still tripping me up and I had to read and reread the information on them to make sure I understood this time.

   I think some of the hardest areas were the rules on the numbers, months, days, etc.  When you are writing out a date, we are not supposed to use: th, rd, st or nd.  I thought it seemed weird because that is how we would say it, using these.  Also, if we are writing the days of the week in a tabular format and abbreviating them, we are supposed to use only three letters and without periods.

    One last area that made me feel like I will be referencing this book on a regular basis is the "datelines" section about containing the city name, entirely in capital letters, and then deciding if you add the state with it or not.  Some of them like MIAMI, ATLANTA, HOUSTON or SEATTLE seemed pretty obvious, but especially the international locations I am going to need to take time to look up.

     But overall, this week with studying this book has been very helpful and I have enjoyed it.  I know after listening to the power point for this week, there were a few of the tips that would have been helpful on previous assignments.  Every new assignment I am gaining a better appreciation for writers in all different professions.  It is becoming more clear to me the ones that really know their rules and ones that just write to get words on paper and don't really that to some that know the rules, they aren't very good at following them.