The Associated Press Stylebook (generally called the AP Stylebook), alternatively titled The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, is a style and usage guide for American English grammar created by American journalists working for or connected with the Associated Press journalism cooperative based in New York City. The Stylebook offers a basic reference to American English grammar, punctuation, and principles of reporting, including many definitions and rules for usage as well as styles for capitalization, abbreviation, spelling, and numerals.
The first publicly available edition of the book was published in 1953. The first modern edition was published in August 1977 by Lorenz Press. Afterwards, various paperback editions were published by different publishers, including, among others, Turtleback Books, Penguin's Laurel Press, Pearson's Addison-Wesley, and Hachette's Perseus Books and Basic Books. Recent editions are released in several formats, including paperback and flat-lying spiral-bound editions, as well as a digital e-book edition and an online subscription version. Additionally, the AP Stylebook also provides English grammar recommendations through social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
From 1977 to 2005, more than two million copies of the AP Stylebook were sold worldwide, with that number climbing to 2.5 million by 2011. Writers in broadcasting, news, magazine publishing, marketing departments, and public relations firms traditionally adopt and apply AP grammar and punctuation styles.
Organization
The AP Stylebook is organized into sections:
;Business Guidelines
:A reference section for reporters covering business and financial news including general knowledge of accounting, bankruptcy, mergers, and international bureaus. For instance, it includes explanations of five different chapters of bankruptcy.
;Sports Guidelines and Style
:Includes terminology, statistics, organization rules and guidelines commonly referenced by sports reporters, such as the correct way to spell and use basketball terminology like half-court pass, field goal and goal-tending.
;Guide to Punctuation
:A specific guide on how to use punctuation in journalistic materials. This section includes rules regarding hyphens, commas, parentheses, and quotations.
;Briefing on Media Law
:An overview of legal issues and ethical expectations for those working in journalism, including the difference between slander and libel. Slander is spoken; libel is written.
;Photo Captions
:The simple formula of what to include when writing a photo caption, usually called a cutline in newspapers.
;Editing Marks
:A key with editing symbols to assist the journalist with the proofreading process.
;Digital Security
:A guide to protect journalists, their work, sources, online accounts, and avoid online harassment.
;Bibliography
:This provides second reference materials for information not included in the book. For example, it says to use Webster's New World College Dictionary as a reference after the AP Stylebook for spelling, style, usage and foreign geographic names.
Title
From 1909, when the first company-wide stylebook-like guide was released internally under the title: "The Associate Press Rules Regulations and General Orders", and until 1953, the stylebook was published under different titles including, among others, Instructions for Correspondents of the Associated Press, The Associated Press. Regulations Traffic Department, A Guide for Filing Editors. The Associated Press, A Guide for Foreign Correspondents. The Associated Press, A Guide for Writers. The Associated Press, The AP Copy Book, and AP Writing Handbook.
By the end of WWII, pressures from a growing number of non-journalistic business sectors, already referencing copied or confiscated copies of the guide for years, greatly increased the stylebook's demand. The first publicly available edition of AP Stylebook was published in 1953 under the title "The Associated Press Style Book". Since 1953, the stylebook has been published under different titles, including Writing for The AP; AP Stylebook; and The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual.
Some journalists have referred to The AP Stylebook as the 'journalist bible'.
In 2000, the guide was renamed The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law and the paperback edition has been published under this title since then. Some editions, such as the spiral-bound and e-book editions, use the shorter title The Associated Press Stylebook on their covers.
History
The Associated Press organization was first created in 1846. The first company-wide AP "guide" did not cover English grammar. It was more of a brochure with 24 pages of various titles and corporate structures of the Associated Press organization and was first published in 1900 under the title "The Associated Press".
Although a formal English grammar style guide did not exist across the organization through the 1800s, individual bureaus were known to have maintained similar internal style guides as early as the late 1870s. The first corporate-wide style guide, with a complete reference to American English words and grammar, was released in 1909, under the title: "The Associate Press Rules Regulations and General Orders".
By the early 1950s the publication was formalized into the AP Stylebook and became the leading professional English grammar reference by most member and non-member news bureaus throughout the world. Due to growing demand by non-member journalists and writers working in public-facing corporate communications, the AP published their first official "stylebook" for the general public in 1953 under the title Associated Press Style Book; the first publication focused on "where the wire set a specific style". For nearly a quarter century it assumed its reader had a "solid grounding in language and a good reference library" and thus omitted any guidelines in those broader areas. Secondly, in 1977 the book was published for the first time by a 3rd party publisher – Lorenz Press. Thirdly, in 1977, United Press International and AP cooperated to produce stylebooks for each organization based on revisions and guidelines jointly agreed to by editors of both UPI Stylebook (Bobby Ray Miller) and AP Stylebook (Howard Angione). In 1982, Eileen Alt Powell, a co-editor of AP Stylebook 1980 edition, stated that: