The Associated Press Stylebook 2013

The Associate Press Stylebook 2013 (Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing On Media Law) Forty-Sixth Edition by The Associated Press caught my attention due to my interest in wanting to understand some of the references pertaining to working in the career field of Public Relations/Advertising/Media. There are terms pertaining to the Mountain States, Movie Ratings, Movie Studios, MPEG-2, Ordinals, Cardinal Numbers (between pages 178-196). There are also terms such as Transportation Communications International Union (Headquarters in Rockville Maryland) page 274, The Washington Post Co, Washington’s Birthday (both on page 288), Issues concerning sources (page 336), a promise to a source creates an enforceable agreement (pages 337) and much more illuminative data.

I am a Journalism student, so I needed this book for a class and my career. It is a must-have reference book for any writer that wants to write articles or any journalist. I was excited to get it. It felt like a right of passage. I was on to my dreams and my future. It is not like a big thrill to leaf through it; it is a much-needed reference book. It is one of those things that you will always have with you. I might make a quick tab system for myself. I might also get a version for my tablet. The internet is not a resource that can replace this book!!!!! Your Instructors and Editors will Frown Down Upon You if you get to a certain level of writing, and you did not consult this book when writing!!!! If anyone has a tabbing system that works for them, I would love to know what you did. When I figure it out, I will share what works for me.

As a student in public relations this was merely a required book for a writing course that turned into a must-have for all my classes. It is a great tool and guide to help with writing. I use it all the time. I would recommend this for anyone in PR, Journalism or Media.

This is a must have book for anyone who writes any kind of professional text. It provides the AP standards for everything like, is it U.S.A. or USA? Is it USS Enterprise or U.S.S. Enterprise, is it Web-Page or Webpage? (and literally millions more). My only complaint about his particular book is that my older versions were spiral bound, which made navigating the book easier, and the book would stay open to a page better.

The AP Stylebook gets a five-star rating, because it includes everything a serious writer who writes for print or online media needs to know. Sure, you may be able to find a list of AP style guidelines on the Internet, but this book is comprehensive and is arranged in a format that makes finding specific answers easy, i.e., if you look up "Asperger's Disorder," you'll find that Asperger's syndrome (with a small "s") is the correct AP style. There are also entire guideline sections on sports, food, fashion, business and social media among others. As an online journalist, punctuation guidelines are crucial, and the AP Stylebook clearly delineates them and demonstrates how to use punctuation properly with multiple examples. This stylebook is well worth the money, and when a new one is published, I'll purchase it pronto.

The Associated Press Stylebook is a useful reference. Arranged alphabetically, information is easily located. If your personal library already includes The Chicago Manual of Style, this is a worthy addition. The best explanation I have seen in other reviews describing the differences between the two reference books is: The Chicago Manual of Style is for writers of books...The Associated Press Stylebook is for everyone else.

This book would be good to add in the bookshelf of references for writing and/or editing, especially if using American English (I'm used to British English) or American context. The most part of it is the stylebook, which reads like a dictionary, and is quite helpful (if the entries you're looking for are there). There are sections on media law, guidelines for social media, sports, food, fashion, business, broadcast and photo captions. The editing marks section is only one page, which is pretty disappointing as I thought more should be covered. There should also be more diagrams and graphics in the book especially as examples in "Interactives/Graphics" section. Lots of chunks of text in the whole book can be a turn-off visually. I don't like it that the breakup of words between lines (and thus hyphenated) occurs very very often. As a test, I looked up "Kampuchea" (not there), USA (no periods), use of en and em dash (not enough info as it just describes "dash" without differentiating both types), and use of numerals (split up here and there but quite good overall). What I like best though is not the book itself but the buying experience in Amazon. I ordered from an independent seller listed in the "Used" listing, opted for international shipping and got it less than 2 weeks later. Much faster than the estimated 9 weeks! Well the cost of shipping is much more than the cost of the book itself. :)

It's purpose is in the name. It's a style book for writing AP style and it details all the little bits of AP you have to learn in an organized fashion. The grammar and liable lesson in the back is an added bonus. I plan on keeping this on me at all time if I get a writing gig.

Tried to read it many times, but not able to understand how to do it. It is so confusing. I start reading something, then get check XYZ page for detailed information, need to leave the topic there and go to the reference page, then coming back to the old page.

As a full time web developer (dthomas.co) this is an essential piece of kit and one of the few books I have a hard copy rather than a kindle version off.

very cooperative

Very explanatory with excellent reference points/examples.

It is clear from some previous reviews that the nature and purpose of this book need to be explained: it is an everyday working tool for professional journalists who are editing material using Associated Press style, which is probably the most widely-used US newspaper style. These editors will be using it together with the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The AP style guide is not for casual dipping into. Nor is it a dictionary. It is not something that will tell you how to write well or something to keep you entertained and, above all, it is NOT for anyone who intends to write in British English. If you are not sure whether you are writing US or British English, you definitely do not need this book. (Hint: this review is in British English, with British grammar, syntax and spelling.) If you need to use AP style professionally, you need to use it. It doesn't really matter whether it's good, bad or indifferent. If you are not required to use it, you don't need to buy the book. Incidentally, the 2015 edition -- which has some changes, though nothing substantial -- is now out.