Top 10 AP Style Rules

1. Quote attributions should be, “[person] said.” Every time. EVERY TIME.
2. When abbreviating months:
   1. January = Jan.
   2. February = Feb.
   3. August = Aug.
   4. September = Sept.
   5. October = Oct.
   6. November = Nov.
   7. December = Dec.
   8. March, April, May, June, July are all written out.
3. Always spell out acronyms FIRST, followed by the acronym in parentheses. For all subsequent uses, you can just use the acronym.
4. Virginia should always be abbreviated Va.
   • When the name of a state name appears in the body of a text, spell it out (Virginia).
   • When the name of a city and state are used together, the name of the state should be abbreviated, except for Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah (Alexandria, Va.).
   • States should also be abbreviated when used as part of a short-form political affiliation (Tim Kaine, D-Va.).
5.  Capitalize course titles, but not subjects (Example: DNA Science and biology are correct).
6. Use quotation marks around books, plays, poems, songs, lectures or speech titles, hymns, movies, TV programs. DO NOT use quotation marks around newspapers and magazines.
7. As much as you may want to, DO NOT use the Oxford comma.
8. Plural numbers are written as numerals with a lower-case “s” (Example: 1920s the 1930s the ‘20s the ‘30s)
9. Use character styles and paragraph styles in InDesign. They change year-to-year and the official templates will be preloaded with styles for copy, captions, bylines, subheads, etc…
10. Capitalize proper class names, but not grade-level identifiers.

BONUS: When referring to sports teams, it’s boys basketball, not boy’s basketball.

If you’re looking for something more thorough, but still compact, here’s a printable checklist you can hand next to your computer.