UPAR 2017 08 Associated Press Style

Associated Press Style inAssociated Press Style inMilitary JournalismMilitary JournalismUsing 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 JournalismJournalismCAPITALIZATION

•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.


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.


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.


Enlisted RankAir ForceAirman BasicAirmanAirman First ClassSenior AirmanStaff SergeantTechnical SergeantMaster SergeantSenior Master SergeantChief Master Sergeant

AP StyleAirmanAirmanAirman 1st ClassSenior AirmanStaff Sgt.Tech. Sgt.Master Sgt.Senior Master Sgt.Chief Master Sgt.

AP Style in Military AP Style in Military JournalismJournalismCommissioned Officers – Army and Air Force

RankSecond LieutenantFirst LieutenantCaptainMajorLieutenant ColonelColonelBrigadier GeneralMajor GeneralLieutenant GeneralGeneral

Warrant Officer (1)Chief Warrant Officer 2-5

AP Style2nd Lt.1st Lt.Capt.Maj.Lt. Col.Col.Brig. Gen.Maj. Gen.Lt. Gen.Gen.

Warrant OfficerChief Warrant Officer Two – Five


Unit IdentificationUse Arabic figures and capitalize the key words when linked with the figures

YES

102nd Infantry Battalion

103rd Fighter Wing

143rd Military Police Company

Company B, 1st Battalion, 102nd Infantry Battalion

NO

102D INF BN

103D FIGHTER WING

143D MP CO

BRAVO, 1-102D INF


Dates & TimesDates – Always use Arabic figures without st, nd, rd or th

Months – Capitalize the names of months in all uses. When used with a specificdate, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec.

EXAMPLES

January 1972 was a cold month. Jan. 2 was the coldest day of the month.

His birthday is May 8.

Feb. 14, 1987, was the target date.

Friday, Dec. 3, was the day the accident occurred.


Dates & TimesTime – Use figures except for noon and midnight.

Use a colon to separate hours from minutes.DO NOT USE MILITARY, 24-HOUR TIME

EXAMPLES - 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m.NOT – 1100hrs, 1300hrs, 1530hrs

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


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.

Examples: NIANTIC, Conn. --FORT DRUM, N.Y. –FORT HOOD, Texas –INDIANAPOLIS --


Ala. (AL)Ariz. (AZ)Ark. (AR)Calif. (CA)Colo. (CO)Conn. (CT)Del. (DE)Fla. (FL)Ga. (GA)Ill. (IL)Ind. (IN)Kan. )KS)Ky. (KY)La. (LA)

Md. (MD)Mass. (MA)Mich. (MI)Minn. (MN)Miss. (MS)Mo. (MO)Mont. (MT)Neb. (NE)Nev. (NV)N.H. (NH)N.J. (NJ)N.M. (NM)N.Y. (NY)N.C. (NC)

N.D. (ND)Okla. (OK)Ore. (OR)Pa. (PA)R.I. (RI)S.C. (SC)S.D. (SD)Tenn. (TN)Vt. (VT)VA. (VA)Wash. (WA)W.Va. (WV)Wis. (WI)Wyo. (WY)

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 …


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


Quotation Marks & AttributionQuotation 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 QuoteStaff Sgt. Johnson said that unit morale was very high

during 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 JournalismJournalismBook & 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.


What are your questions?What are your questions?

UPAR 2017 08 Associated Press Style

Government & Nonprofit

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