What is style

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What is style

• and why should I care?

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or

• Should we hyphenate blingbling?

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• A half-dozen staffers and 10 customers hit the
  floor as the bandits scooped up diamond-encrusted
  gold chains and other bling-bling favored by
  rappers and wanna-bes.
• New York Daily News,
• Jan. 8, 2004

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How will Melvyn Tesko differentiate
Root-of-all-Evil plcs new Christmas from this
years model? Early indications are that the
trees will get more bling bling.
The Times of London, Dec. 27, 2003
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Style is not

• in this meaning, the way you write your story.
  Writers, especially feature writers, are entitled
  to have a degree of personal style in their
  writing.

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Style is a set of rules governing such
things as

• Punctuation.
• Abbreviation.
• Capitalization.
• Spelling choices.
• Number formatting.

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Why style?

• So our readers wont be confronted with a
  confusing array of spellings and uses.

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(No Transcript)
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Why style?
So we can set a tone for our newspapers. We
want neither to be so formal as to seem dry and
scholarly to our readers nor so casual as to make
us look trivial to our readers.
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The President today put aside concerns about
Congressional action on the Budget and instead
attended the cinema. The president today put
aside concerns about congressional action on the
budget and instead went to a movie. The prez
today quit dissing the budget dawgs long enough
to chill watchin Britney.
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Why should you care?

• Youre being graded on style.
• Knowing style makes you appear professional.
• Following style makes it more likely your
  articles will be published.

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A Testimonial
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I still have my dog-eared copy of the AP
Stylebook at arms reach, and you can tell your
classes that I actually refer to it at least once
a week. SAS has a fairly involved editing
process for press releases. The copy editors at
SAS consistently thank me for providing
error-free (or near error-free) announcements for
their review. That j-school training keeps
coming through time and again.
Daniel Teachey, director of public
relations DataFlux Corporation (A SAS Company)
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The rules you need to know
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NumbersSpell out numbers one through nine use
figures for 10 and higher.

• He bought six bananas, 10 oranges and 11
  apples.
• Important exceptions
• Use figures for ages of people and animals
  (new rule).
• He is a 5-year-old boy the table is eight
  years old.
• Use figures for times.
• The meeting is at 1 p.m. He went home at 3
  p.m.
• Use figures for address numbers.
• She lives at 7 Main St.
• Use figures for dimensions.
• John is 6 feet tall. The board is 4 inches wide.

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Spell out any number that begins a sentence.
Fifty students attended the lecture.
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Times

• Use lowercase letters and periods for a.m. and
  p.m.
• Use noon and midnight, alone, without 12 in front
  of them. (Technically there is neither a 12 a.m.
  or 12 p.m.).
• Add a colon and figures only when you add minutes
  to the hour.
• She will lecture at 1030 a.m., noon and 2 p.m.

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Commas

• Drop the serial comma before and.
• He ordered pizza with cheese, sausage and
  mushrooms.

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MonthsAbbreviate months used in a full date
spell them out otherwise.

• The girl was born on Aug. 12, 1998. They plan
  to visit France in August 2003.

Exceptions Never abbreviate March, April, May,
June and July.
He was born on March 15, 1963. They were married
on June 16, 1985.
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State Names

• Abbreviate state names when used after city (or
  county) names, and surround them with commas.
• I live in Washington, N.C., but I was born in
  Orange County, Calif.
• Exceptions Never abbreviate these eight states

Alaska Hawaii Idaho Iowa
Maine Ohio Texas Utah
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State Names

• Use the Associated Press abbreviations, rather
  than the postal abbreviations, except in
  addresses.
• Spell out states standing alone.

Ive lived in Missouri, Florida, New York and
North Carolina.
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Addresses

• Abbreviate Street (St.), Avenue (Ave.) and
  Boulevard (Blvd.) in full addresses. Spell out
  all similar words.
• Abbreviate compass points in addresses.
• Use figures for an address number.

She lives at 115 E. Franklin St. in Chapel
Hill. He works at 202 W. Cameron Ave. The
house at 11 S. 63rd Terrace is for sale.
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Addresses

• Spell out all such words when used alone.

He lives on East Franklin Street. Her home is
off Independence Boulevard.
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Titles

• Lowercase and spell out all titles standing alone.

• The president lives in the White House.
• The pope lives in the Vatican.
• The chancellor works in South Building.
• The senators office is in Washington.

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Titles

• Capitalize formal titles before a name and
  abbreviate according to stylebook rules.
• He spoke with Chancellor James Moeser, Gov.
  Mike Easley and Sen. Jesse Helms.
• Lowercase professor in all uses.
• I met with professor Jan Yopp in her office.

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Days of the Week

• Use the day, alone, for dates within seven days.
  
• The class will meet Monday.
• Use the date, alone, for dates beyond seven
  days.
• He will graduate May 18.

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Days of the Week

• There is no yesterday (or last night).
• There is no tomorrow.
• There is today, however.
• He returned to campus Tuesday.
• He will go to class Thursday.
• He will attend the meeting today.

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But what about blingbling?
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Yes, we hyphenate bling-bling, but its not in
the stylebook (nor planned to be) since its
pretty much fashion jargon and probably shouldnt
be used in civilized company.
Norm Goldstein, editor of the AP Stylebook