5-MINUTE AP STYLEBOOK
YOUR GO-TO GUIDE FOR ALL THINGS AP STYLE
MEMORIZE THESE RULES. • Honors is uppercase when talking about Mar-
REFERENCE WHEN YOU GET quette’s Honors Program. If talking about honors in
general, lowercase.
STUCK.
-Ex.: “Marquette’s Honors Program” or “Her
This guide provides all the AP style rules you should
high school honors program.”
memorize as a reporter writing for the Marquette
• Mass and Church are uppercase unless talking
Wire. They are taken from the AP Stylebook and from
about a physical church building and not the entity
the Marquette Wire. Learning them will make writing
of Catholic Church
easier and edits cleaner.
• Only capitalize a title if it comes before the person’s
name and name is being used as a form of ad-
CAPITALIZATION dress. Do not captialize if it comes after the title.
• Capitalize commone nouns when they are part -Ex.: “University President Michael Lovell” and
of a proper name for a person, place or thing. “chair of the English department Leah Flack.”
Lowercase all common nouns when they are • Homecoming is always capitalized.
pluraized.
- Ex.: “the Milwaukee River” or “the river”
• Lowercase all seasons unless part of a proper
PUNCTUATION
• Commas, period and apostrophes go inside
title.
quotation marks. Question marks, dashes, colons,
-Ex.: “This summer” or “The Summer
semicolons and exclamation points go outside
Olympics.”
unless they’re specific to the quoted material.
• Freshman, sophomore, junior and senior are
• All punctuation goes outside parentheses.
capitalized.
• Ellipses and dahses need a space before and after
• Classes are referred to as Class of 2020 and are
them.
capitalized and not abbreviated.
• Years do not need an apostrophe in them since
• Milwaukee directional neighborhoods are not
they are not possessive.
capitalized
-Ex.: “The 1920s” would be correct
-Ex.: “The near west side.”
• There are no italics in AP Style, so all major works
• School subjects are not capitalized unless they
of art, literature, TV shows, etc., use quoatation
are referencing the full, official name of the class.
marks.
-Ex.: “Professor in history.”
• Hyphens and dashes are different. Hyphens go
• Always capitalize Orientation when referring to
inside compound modifiers before nouns (Ex.: a
Marquette’s program in particular.
little-known song) while dashes are used for attribu-
• Always capitalize “the” in “The Commons.”
tions and abrupt changes.
• The Oxford comma is never used in AP Style. Only • Always use toward, not towards.
leave in when you have a complex list and need it for • Use titled, not entitled.
clarity. • Never say “according to” when referring to a person.
-Ex.: “We ate tune, chicken and beef for dinner.” It can only be according to a book, newspaper, etc.
• Free throw is two words, no hyphen. If it is a person, it has to be “said.”
• Em dashes are used to signal abrupt change before
attribution to an author, after datelines and to start lists. WIRE’S SPECIAL RULES
• Hyphens are used a joiners (such as compound modifi- • Don’t use the title Dr. before a name unless they
ers) and to indicate ranges. are an M.D.
• Except for sports stories, students mentioned need
HEADLINES to be listed with their grade level, college and full
• There are no articles in headlines (a, the, an). name on first reference. All other references can use
• Use single quotes if quotes are needed. just the last name.
• If there is a colon, capitalize the word immediately • Fisever Forum doesn’t have a “the” in front of it.
following. -Ex.: “The game was held at Fiserv Forum.”
• If possible, try to avoid using “Marquette,” “student,” • Sports stories do not have to spell out universities’
and “campus” in headlines as much as possible. full names; they can use whatever the university is
best known as in the sports world.
TRIBUNE VS. JOURNAL • Marquette colleges are written as follows: College of
• For the Tribune, always use “said,” never “says.” Business Administration, College of Communication,
• Try not to change too much in Journal articles. We try College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering,
to have these reflect the writing style of the journalist. College of Nursing, College of Health Sciences.
For example, instead of rewriting a sentence that may • When referring to Marquette as just the “university,”
sound confusing, leaving a note for the writer to do it always use lowercase.
themselves. • Always write out “University President Michael
Lovell” on first reference, just “Lovell” on the second
reference.
MISCELLANEOUS
• AP Style calls for “theater” as opposed to “threatre.”
• In general, numbers less than 10 are spelled out. Any-
Marquette uses “theatre” in all official names and
thing over 10 should use numerals.
programs within the university, so use “theatre”
• For times, always a.m. or p.m. unless the article states
unless talking about non-specific references.
“in the morning” or “at night.”
• Never “freshman,” say “first-year student” instead.
• For dates, always use the month and numeral. When
• Even though the stylebook says you don’t need to
a month is used with a specific date, spell out March,
specify the state with a city name if you are in that
April, May, June and July and abbreviate all others.
state, the Wire always lists the state unless the city
• Ages are always numeral, not spelled out.
is Madison, Milwaukee or Green Bay.
• In general, spell out all acronyms and abbreviations on
• Always refer to university press release emails as
first reference and use the abbreviation on all referenc-
“news releases.”
es after that.
-Ex.: “Marquette University Police Department” on
first reference and “MUPD” through the rest of the article.
• There is no need to spell out well known acronyms
such as FBI, CIA, etc.
