AP Style Guide Cheat Sheet
1. Punctuation like periods and commas go inside the quotation
marks. Quotes within a quote are shown with single quote marks.
Use commas to separate words in a series, but not before the “and.”
“No truer words about education were spoken than by Nelson
Mandela when he said ‘Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can use to change the world,’” explained the
principal to the students, teachers and parents.
2. Numbers one through nine should be spelled out. Use figures
for 10 and above.
> If a number begins a sentence, spell it out.
• Forty students joined the program. The room could barely
hold 40 students.
> Always use figures for ages (She is 5 years old.),
percentages (4 percent to 12 percent), time (6 p.m., 9:30
a.m.), street numbers (1 Boot Road) and days of the month
(Jan. 1, 2013, NOT 1st).
> Money: Use the dollar sign ($3, $30, $30,000). Use exact
figures up to $1 million. On figures more than $1 million, use
decimals ($3.5 million, $3.85 billion).
AP Style Guide Cheat Sheet
3. To Abbreviate or Not to Abbreviate
> Addresses: Abbreviate Avenue (Ave.), Boulevard (Blvd.) and
Street (St.) only with an exact numbered address. Always
spell out Road and Lane.
> Organizations on first reference: Spell out the full name on
first reference, and abbreviate on second reference.
> Never abbreviate: Percents (25 percent), days of the week,
weights (25 pounds), degrees (25 degrees).
4. Dates and Times
> Months: Abbreviate months with six or more letters if used
with a specific date. Spell out the name of months with five
or fewer letters (March through July) and whenever a month
is used without a specific date. Use the day of the week
whenever possible (and never abbreviate it).
• Jan. 1, Oct. 10, two days in February and July 4
> Time: Do not use o”clock to indicate time. Spell out noon
and midnight, instead of writing 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.
• The program begins at 8 a.m. and ends at noon.
• Students can tour the school from 6:30 p.m. until 9:15 p.m.
AP Style Guide Cheat Sheet
5. Titles and Capitalization
> Unless you are The New York Times, don’t use courtesy
titles like Mr., Mrs., Ms. and Miss.
> On first reference, use a person’s full name. On second
reference, use only the last name.
• Dr. Joseph O’Brien, executive director of the Chester
County Intermediate Unit (CCIU), extoled the benefits of
career and technical education at the ceremony. “This is
not your father or your mother’s vocational school, this is
the future of education,” O’Brien said. (NOT Mr. O’Brien)
> Nearly all formal titles are capitalized before the name and
lowercased after the name. When the title stands alone, do
not capitalize it.
• Superintendent Larry Brown will retire in July. The
ceremony will begin when the superintendent arrives.
> Capitalize the first word of any title and all words that are
four letters or longer. Do not capitalize “a,” “an,” and “the”
or conjunctions and prepositions, unless they are four
letters or longer.
AP Style Guide Cheat Sheet
> Do not capitalize abbreviations for the time of day (a.m.
and p.m.) or words like state, county, or high school unless
that are part of a full titles: state competition, Technical
College High School, high school student, Chester County,
county government.
6. Miscellaneous
> Beware the homonym
• Their ideas were solid.
There was an idea in her head.
They’re full of ideas.
• It’s a far cry from finished.
Its paint was chipping.
• Can two students volunteer?
Is this too much pressure?
Where can I catch the bus to school?
> Hypenation: When two or more adjectives express a single
concept, use hypens to link all the words in the compound.
Don’t use a hyphen when the compound modifier occurs
after the verb.
AP Style Guide Cheat Sheet
• The 40-year-old company funded the full-time project.
> Use a single space after the period at a sentence’s end.
> Collective nouns like team, school board, union, committee
and group take singular verbs, like “is,” and the pronoun “it”
instead of “are” and “they.”
