Poynter reports on Anna Jo Bratton's presentation at VCON25, ACES: The Society for Editing’s virtual conference, and on the relationship between AP's breaking news coverage and AP style decisions.

We expanded our entry on the terms accident and crash, which advises avoiding the implication of blamelessness where negligence may be involved.

The general term visas often suffices to refer to documents showing permission to visit, work or study in another country. If relevant, use the classification and/or a brief description. For example: H-1B visas used for high-tech workers or visas used for high-tech workers.

Do you want to feel more confident deciding when you need a comma and when you don't? The AP Stylebook Workshop on mechanics is for you. We'll go deep on commas, hyphens, capitalization, numerals and more. The first live session is Oct. 1 so sign up now. store.stylebooks.com/ap-stylebook...

All Jewish holy days and the Jewish Sabbath start at sunset before the day marked on most calendars. The High Holy Days are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

The term Natives is acceptable on second reference for Native Americans. The term Native is acceptable as an adjective — Native music, Native art — but if the story is not generally about Native Americans, use Native American music, Native American art, etc.

We just expanded the guidance we offer when you add the Merriam-Webster module to your AP Stylebook Online subscription.

Our recent blog post about the relationship (or not) between em dashes and AI generated a side conversation about how to format em dashes. AP style calls for a space on both sides of a dash in all uses except the start of sports agate summaries.

Why does the English language sometimes feel like a complicated mess? Merriam-Webster's editor at large, Peter Sokolowski, will join the AP Stylebook Workshop to help explain. He’ll share guidance on what to do when there's no clear right and wrong or when the rules are gray and require judgment.

The Stylebook's entry "homicide, murder, manslaughter" advises: Homicide is a legal term for killing. Generally speaking, manslaughter is homicide without malice or premeditation. A homicide should not be described as murder unless a person has been convicted of that charge.

An AP Stylebook Online subscriber asked: When writing about child care programs for a school, should the options be listed as "before- and after-school programs" or "before and after-school"? Our Ask the Editor response: Before- and after-school programs.

AP style uses fiance for a man and fiancee for a woman. It is generally acceptable to use fiance to describe anyone who is engaged to be married, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Use the abbreviations Ave., Blvd. and St. only with a numbered address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Spell them out and capitalize when part of a formal street name without a number: Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ellen Jovin has crisscrossed the United States answering questions at her pop-up advice stand, Grammar Table. @grammartable.bsky.social will join the AP Stylebook Workshop this fall to share the language questions that vex Americans the most – as well as a few of Ellen’s favorite obscure questions.

The T in kindergarten and kindergartners trips up some people. It's not kindergarden, even if it might feel logical that little ones are growing there. Capitalize the K in pre-K and K-12.

For the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 9/11 is acceptable in all references. (Note the comma to set off the year when the phrase refers to a month, date and year.)

Sept. 11 memorial is acceptable in all references to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at ground zero in New York City. Add the location for other memorials with similar names. apnews.com/article/911-...

Our friends at ACES: The Society for Editing recently profiled new Stylebook editor Anna Jo Bratton: aceseditors.org/news/2025/ta... Thanks to Matthew Crowley for helping to introduce our new editorial leader!

CEO is acceptable in all references for chief executive officer, who typically has the primary decision-making authority. This role is separate from chief financial officer and chief operating officer, but an individual may hold more than one of these positions at a time. apnews.com/article/nest...

Stylebook editor Anna Jo Bratton weighs in on the belief that em dashes signal writing done by artificial intelligence. Yes, Anna Jo wrote this blog post, not AI, and yes, the human-written headline includes an em dash. www.apstylebook.com/blog_posts/24

If you're feeling the back-to-school energy, sign up for an AP Stylebook Workshop. Live sessions start in October, but you'll get immediate access to AP Stylebook Online and AP Stylebook Study Guides, our self-scoring quizzes.

AP style says red-haired, redhead and redheaded are acceptable for a person with red hair. Redhead also is used colloquially to describe a type of North American diving duck. apnews.com/article/redh...

Our dictionary, Merriam-Webster, defines gerrymandering as the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections.

Do you want to take the AP Stylebook Workshop on mechanics including punctuation, capitalization and numbers? Or the AP Stylebook Workshop on refining your content, including cutting cliches, jargon and excess detail, and making better judgment calls? Yes and yes!

A hurricane warning is an announcement that sustained winds of 74 mph (119 km/hr) or higher are expected within the specified area in association with a tropical, subtropical or post-tropical cyclone. The warning is issued 36 hours before tropical-storm-force winds are expected to arrive.

Computer systems, software or processes that can emulate aspects of human work and cognition are called artificial intelligence.

Manual de Estilo de la AP is not a Spanish translation of the English AP Stylebook, but it is informed by the same AP news values and principles. It was written by our Spanish-speaking journalists to help guide other Spanish-speaking writers and editors.

Watch out for this nuance in college degrees: Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree, a master’s, etc., but there is no possessive in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science. Also, it's an associate degree. It's not possessive so it doesn't take an apostrophe.

The AP Stylebook's lengthy suicide entry advises that for stories mentioning it, suicide prevention experts recommend including in U.S. stories the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline.org.

Our proofing tools aren't just artificial intelligence reviewing your text. Our technology partner Tansa Systems has linguistic experts who keep up on AP style rules to write code that finds common errors and recommends changes. That means greater nuance and understanding than simple automation.

The Stylebook's business chapter recommends using active verbs – rose, fell and the like – not passive constructions like were up/down for corporate earnings.

Merriam-Webster defines an empty nester (noun) as a parent whose children have grown and moved away from home.

Further on our conversations about compound modifiers, we changed our guidance in 2019 to say no hyphen is needed in most cases with grade or grader. For example: a fourth grade student, first grader, she is in the fifth grade.

The early-bird discount for the AP Stylebook ends Friday. Grab your seats now to get the best price, then mark your calendar to join us for in-depth AP style conversations starting on Oct. 1. store.stylebooks.com/ap-stylebook...

Capitalize hurricane when it is part of the name that weather forecasters assign to a storm: Hurricane Erin. But use it and its – not she, her or hers or he, him or his – in pronoun references. apnews.com/climate-and-...

Is it college move in or move-in? Our primary dictionary, Merriam-Webster, lists move in with no hyphen, as well as moved in for past tense and moves in as the intransitive verb.

When quoting dialogue or conversation, each person's words, no matter how brief, are placed in a separate paragraph, with quotation marks at the beginning and the end of each person's speech: "Will you go?" "Yes." "When?" "Thursday."

Spell out the number "four" when referring to the Power Four, the group of conferences that generate the most athletic revenue in the NCAA and have some autonomy to create rules.

It's capital K with a hyphen then the numeral 9 when referring to K-9 working dogs, like Maple the former K-9 now working to sniff out threats to Michigan State University bee colonies. apnews.com/video/former...

You have one more week to sign up for one or both AP Stylebook Workshops at the early-bird rate. New notebooks and pencil not required, but if new school supplies get you in that back-to-school energy, we're here for it. Register now: store.stylebooks.com/ap-stylebook...

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war, divided by the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea. On follow-ups, the North and the South are acceptable.

Capitalize National Guard when referring to U.S. or state-level forces, or foreign forces when that is the formal name: the National Guard, the Guard, the Iowa National Guard, Iowa's National Guard, National Guard troops. On second reference, lowercase the guard. apnews.com/article/trum...

AP Stylebook Online is the resource that makes it easy for you to keep up with the latest in AP style. Keep up with additions or changes as our editors watch what's in the news. Check recent updates and new additions from your dashboard, and get email notifications, if you like.

According to Merriam-Webster, the uppercase Perseid is any of a group of meteors that appear annually about Aug. 11. Therefore this AP story talks about the Perseids, plural, peaking this week: Summer’s most dazzling meteor shower, the Perseids, peaks early Wednesday. apnews.com/article/pers...

Getting ready for classes to begin? AP style uses syllabuses as the plural for syllabus, not syllabi, for outlines of what courses will cover. Similarly, we use cactuses as the plural form of cactus, not cacti.

Our tip last week about soft serve ice cream prompted several AP style fans to ask why this compound modifier isn't hyphenated. The Stylebook's hyphens entry acknowledges there's often not an absolute right or wrong. Here's how we decide:

If you are a college instructor and require the AP Stylebook for your class: 1. We offer both the print book and Stylebook Online to support your teaching. 2. If you requested the 57th Edition last year, you already have the most current book. Request your desk copy: apstylebook.com/desk_requests

Those who read our style tips often are good communicators. Does that mean if you frequently read our tips, you are a good communicator? Or that those who read our tips are often good communicators? Can both be true? Of course. But be careful where you place a modifier if it can lead to confusion.

When referring to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the shortened form Machinists union is acceptable in all references. apnews.com/article/boei...

AP's course Write Your Way to Success kicks off at 11 a.m. Eastern this morning with the first of four live sessions There's still time to join some of AP's top writers and editors to build your writing skills. store.stylebooks.com/write-your-w...