Benefits of writing in AP Style

There are many fine details to writing in AP Style; I feel like I consistently have to reference my AP Stylebook with questions. Yet there are some nuances of this style that I find myself starting to enjoy. I like how this style allows you to be more concise; for example, there is no need to include the state with cities where the residing state is obvious.

In addition to the ease of writing locations, writing times is much easier as well. I believe I was guilty of composing such sentences as “I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning”, when all that needed to be written was “I woke up at 7 a.m.”. I find that studying this style and writing in this style is helping be to be a more concise and clear writer and editor.

Editing Error

This week’s error comes from a hilarious email one of my coworkers received – I laughed pretty hard when I read this – and I believe this is worth sharing with the class as well.

“So the nurse board tells me they are unsure why there isn’t a expiration date.  Party because this license has been inactive/probation for a very long time and there has been no inactivity with the license for years.  I would just remove it from your listing.”

There are probably a couple of different editing errors in this email but I bolded the word “party” because it demonstrates well the need for correct word selection and/or correct spelling. Obviously, this person was not intending to advise my coworker to “party” and meant to type “partly” but we both read it as an invitation to party! This email is evidence of the need to review professional emails before sending them.