AP Style: A Cheat Sheet

ADDRESSES

Use the abbreviations Ave., Blvd., and St. only with a numbered addressed. Spell them out and capitalize when part of a formal street name without a number. Lowercase and spell out when used alone or with more than one street name.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Pennsylvania Avenue

Massachusetts and Pennsylvania avenues.

AGES

Always use figures. Use hyphens for ages expressed as adjectives before a noun or as substitutes for a noun.

The boy is 5 years old. 

The 5-year-old house.

DIRECTIONS AND REGIONS

Lowercase north, south, northeast, etc. when they indicate compass direction. Capitalize when they designate regions.

He drove west.

Northwestern is in the Midwest.

MONTHS

When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Sepll out when using alone, or with a year alone.

January 2012

Feb. 2, 2012

STATE NAMES

Spell out the names of the 50 states when they stand alone. Abbreviate when used with the name of a city, town, villega or military bass. Remember that postal code abbreviations are NOT state abbreviations. The names of eight states are never abbreviated in datelines or text: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.

TIMES

Use figures except for noon and midnight. Use a colon to separate hours from minutes. Avoid redundancies such as 10 a.m. this morning.

9-11 a.m.

3:30 p.m.

TITLES

In general, confine capitalization to formal titles used directly before an individual’s name.

Professor Roger Boye

The professor gave the lecture.