A Guide to Grammar
Use the AP Stylebook and other resources to double-check grammar. It will save you and your editor time!
Grammar is a very important part of journalism. Nothing will make a reporter look uneducated faster, or an editor frustrated faster than poor grammar. Everyone makes mistakes, but it is important to try and eliminate as many grammar mistakes as one can before turning in an article. It will make everyone’s life easier.
Good Journalists Have Good Grammar
Associate Professor Joseph Kirby, who works at Florida International University, created a grammar guide. It's extensive and offers a lot of advice and tips on grammar that can be used both in the journalism world and other realms.
In addition to basic grammar, anyone interested in a journalism career of any sort should be familiar with the AP stylebook.
About the AP Style Book
The AP stylebook has everything a reporter could need. It features eight sections, all full of useful points and tips.
Stylebook: This is an alphabetized listing of standards in journalism. It tells one the proper way to do an abbreviation, write a title, talk about government, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and numbers. It also says which ways are socially acceptable to refer to things (black vs. African American, stewardess versus flight attendant) which is something no reporter wants to get wrong.
Business Guidelines: This is a reference section for reporters when they are writing on topics related to business and finance.
Sports Guidelines and Style: This tells a reporter how to write about sports games. It’s a guide to the terminology used in sports, how to report statistics, and guidelines that sports reporters generally follow.
Guide to Punctuation: This is one of the most helpful tools. It’s a guide on everything from hyphens and commas to quotations and everything else grammar-related.
Briefing on Media Law: This helps a reporter know their rights. They can double-check to make sure they are following the law without being held back from information that legally they have a right to. It also goes over journalism ethics.
Photo Captions: This is a guide on how to write a caption for a photo and identify who the photographer was.
Editing marks: Many editors use a series of marks and symbols to edit an article. Some are self-explanatory but some are not, and maybe very significant. This is a guide to those symbols. It’s an important tool to have, socially when working with an editor.
Bibliography: This is a guide of reference materials.
The Journalism department at Florida International University has created an AP Style Book Essentials List that is also useful. When in doubt, look it up!