Book gives cherubs style

By Taylor Freret

The AP Stylebook is hardly physically intimidating. It measures a little less than nine inches long, six inches wide and one inch thick. It weighs about 1.3 pounds. But it has more than 3,000 entries that your instructors want you to know. And if you don’t know them, you better know how to look them up.

“The instructors demand perfection,” said Charesse James, a cherub from Weston, Fla. “Your AP Stylebook becomes your second brain.”

Many students expressed their frustration with having to learn AP style.

“You know the reader knows what you’re talking about but AP style says you can’t do that,” said Robert Pino, a cherub from Chicago. “It’s annoying.”

“At first, I got a lot of AP style mistakes on my papers,” said Lisa Silverman, a cherub from Maryland.

Silverman does not use AP style at her school paper. Rather, she writes what looks right to her.

“I assumed I knew what I was supposed to do,” Silverman said. “When I got a paper back it had ‘AP style,’ ‘AP style,’ ‘AP style’ all over it. I learned my instincts are often wrong.”
           
The instructors dislike that some cherubs don’t look up things they don’t know.
           
“The answers are in there -- the kids just aren’t using the book,” cherub instructor David Weissman said. “They don’t realize what a good book it is.”

However, some cherubs do realize how important it is.

“The AP Stylebook is the Bible,” James said. “If I don’t have it, my papers will suffer in eternal damnation with red ink.”
           
According to cherub instructor Jacqueline Chmielnicki, some of the most common mistakes include composition titles (books and magazines), numerals and time.
           
“I definitely think I have learned a lot from the style book,” said Erika Mahoney, a cherub from Boulder, Colo.  “Numbers have always been confusing for me because there are so many different rules, but the AP Stylebook clearly lays it out.”
           
The stylebook is structured like a dictionary. There are entries in alphabetical order such as “numerals” and “time.” Despite the books seemingly endless amount of knowledge, cherubs still like the alphabetical format of entries.
           
“It’s easy to use,” said Ana Cosma, a cherub from Riverside, Calif. “It’s not the most fun book in the world, but it’s necessary.”
           
Weissman said many people don’t realize just how necessary the AP Stylebook is.
           
“It’s the standard out there,” he said. “If you don’t pay attention to it, what does it say about the other little details that you’re including in your article?”
           
Every cherub was presented with a free copy of the stylebook. Some found this frustrating because they had already bought a copy in preparation for the program.
           
“I was a good student,” said Jessica Jackson, a cherub from New Jersey. “I bought the book. Then Roger [Boye] said, ‘We have a gift for you.’ And I thought, ‘I hope it’s not a stylebook,’ and it was. I wasted $18.”
           
Other cherubs appreciate the gift.
           
“I feel more professional now,” Silverman said. “I am embarrassed for my paper that we didn’t use AP style before. It makes us look very amateur and unsophisticated. It’s going to change.”
           
Many cherubs said AP style is a constant learning experience.

“I’ve definitely gotten better with mistakes,” Cosma said. “You remember when you’ve made a mistake once, and you remember it when you start writing another article.”

Perhaps most important, however, is to always keep the “Bible” close.

The AP Stylebook resembles a dictionary.

A Quiz to Test Your AP Stylebook Knowledge

On a separate sheet of paper, edit the 10 sentences according to AP stylebook rules. Give yourself a point for each correct answer.

1. He went to the museum at 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon.

2. Life with a teething two year old can be trying.

3. The suspect is 6 feet tall.

4. The human body is 70% water.

5. “Okay, that’s just not fair,” Katie said.

6. She’s an actress, a wife, and a mother.

7. I love to eat Tollhouse cookies.

8. Alex Smith is a student in London. Alex plays rugby.

9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours.

10. The young boy posted three flyers before his advisor told him to take them down.

Answers:

1. “1:00 p.m. in the afternoon” should be “1 p.m.”
The AP Stylebooks says: “Avoid redundancies like 10 a.m. this morning.”

2. “two year old” should be “2-year-old”
The AP Stylebooks says: “Use hyphens for ages expressed as adjectives before a noun. Use numerals for all ages. ”

3. “6 feet tall” should be “six feet tall”
The AP Stylebook says: “Spell out whole numbers below 10, use figures for 10 and above (except ages).”

4. “70%” should be “70 percent”
The AP Stylebook says: “One word.”

5. “Okay” should be “OK”
The AP Stylebook says: “Do not use okay.”

6. “An actress, a wife, and a mother” should be “an actress, a wife and a mother”
The AP Stylebook says: “Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before the conjuction in a simple series.”

7. “Tollhouse cookies” should be “tollhouse cookies”
The AP Stylebook says: “tollhouse cookies.”

8. “Alex plays rugby” should be “Smith plays rugby”
The AP Stylebook says: “In general, use last names only on second reference.”

9. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” should be “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”
The AP Stylebook says: “Put quotation marks around the names of all such titles except the Bible and books that are primarily catalogs of reference material.”

10. “flyers” should be “fliers”
The AP Stylebook says: “Flier is the preferred term for a handbill.”

“advisor” should be “adviser”
The AP Stylebook says: “Not advisor.”

How do you rate?
0-3 points—Study up. You're looking at a lot of red on that paper.
4-6 points—Brush up on the AP Stylebook before you get here. You still need some work.
7-9 points—Not bad. You only need that bad boy for reference.
10 points—Wow! Even Jenny Hontz would be impressed!