AP Style
A set of standards for writing.
What is a style guide?
The correct way to shorten "U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service" within the body of our feature stories and news releases.
What is "the agency?"
One is a verb, meaning to create or cause change. The other is a noun, meaning the end result or consequence of a change.
What is "affect" and "effect?"
These abbreviations are common in government, but should be avoided in writing. They're typically formed by combining the first letter of each word.
What is an acronym?
Commas are missing after these words in this sentence: On her way home she passed a rusty patched bumble bee three gray wolves five Kirtland’s warblers and a partridge in a pear tree.
What are "home," "bee" and "wolves"?
Consistency, clarity, accuracy and brevity are some of the guiding principles behind this helpful writing resource.
What is the AP stylebook?
A visual way of formatting pieces of information to help the user focus on important material.
What is a bulleted list?
This symbol should be avoided in written products, but is sometimes used in graphic elements such as the agency logo and a long-running legal drama tv show.
What is an ampersand?
Words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.
What is jargon?
Hyphens are missing after these words in this sentence: The six year old child caught three fish.
What is after "six" and after "year."
These are capitalized only if directly preceding the name of the person who holds it.
What is a job title?
While we don't use them regionally, AP uses these to show the date and "place of writing." Also the name of a popular television show covering mysteries and investigations.
What is a dateline?
Apart from fractions, these special characters rarely have a place in our writing.
What is a slash?
The correct way to refer to silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp and black carp as a group.
What is invasive carp?
The possessive form describing nachos belonging to Tina and additional nachos belonging to Courtney.
What is “Tina’s and Courtney’s nachos”?
There can be only one - not two, three or even four.
What is the number of spaces after terminal punctuation?
This word is used as a way to humanize the agency and make writing more personal.
What is we?
Avoid the use of these by using dashes (or rewriting to exclude them).
What are parentheses?
Which is correct? Yesterday, Garrett celebrated his birthday without [I/me].
What is me?
This is never used to make a word plural.
What is an apostrophe?
A specific, in other words, "not generic," name for a particular person, place or thing. For example "The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good."
What is a proper noun?
Which is correct when referring to numbers? [More than/over] 90,000 people attended Coachella.
What is "more than?"
You refer to yourself this way in the following sentence: Chuck bought Shamrock Shakes for Tina, Courtney and (blank).
What is me?
"Irregardless," "free gift," "based off of," "acrosst," "alot" and "mute point" are just a few examples of these.
What are made up words or phrases that people use incorrectly?
When formatting content in a bulleted list, this should be avoided.
What is terminal punctuation?