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Understanding Style Book

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10 views

Understanding Style Book

Uploaded by

bani kaur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Understanding Style Book

• The Associated Press was founded in 1846 as a cooperative effort


among six New York newspapers that wished to pool resources for
gathering international news.
• Today, with over 3,700 employees in 121 countries, the AP is the
world's single largest news organization.
• Every day, more than a billion people read, hear or see AP news.
• From the beginning, AP reporters have written their dispatches for
readers from diverse social, economic and educational
backgrounds and a wide range of political views.
• The AP therefore strives to keep its writing style easy to read,
concise and free of bias.
• The Associated Press Stylebook, first published in 1977, clarified
the news organization's rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation
and usage.
• Now in its sixth edition, the Stylebook is the standard style guide
for most U.S. newspapers, magazines and public relations firms.
What is style sheet?
• STYLE SHEET: it is a document which contains
guidelines and instructions for the reporters
and sub editors to follow while writing and
editing a news story.
• This document is planned and prepared by the
editorial staff for giving a unique style to the
newspaper.
Importance of Style Sheet
It prescribes
editorial
instructions It ensures Motivates
and uniformity them to
guidelines It carries It helps the and Style sheet improve the
to editorial guidelines newspaper harmony in guides the copy and
staff to or in the working editorial produce a
undertake instructions maintaining of the staff presentable
editorial for both – its own editorial whenever newspaper
assignments sub – distinctive staff and in they are which is
or editors and style. the overall stuck complete
performing reporters. quality of and perfect
editorial the in every
responsibilit newspaper. respect.
ies.
Use of Numbers
• Spell out the numbers one to nine;
• for 10 and up, use figures.
• Spell out numerals that start a sentence; if the result is
awkward, recast the sentence: Twenty-seven detainees were
released yesterday. Yesterday, 993 freshmen entered the college.
• The one exception to this rule is in a sentence that begins with a
calendar year:
• 1938 was a turbulent year for XYZ. Not Nineteen thirty Eight was
a turbulent year for XYZ.
• Use Roman numerals for wars, monarchs and Popes: World War
II, King George VI, Pope John XXIII
Abbreviations

• States
• Spell out the names of the states in text when they appear
alone: Wildfires continued to rage through southern New
Delhi yesterday.
• Abbreviate them when they appear in conjunction with the
name of a city, town, village or military base: Rohini, ND.
• Place one comma between the city and the state name,
and another after the state name, unless at the end of a
sentence or in a dateline (e.g. She travelled from Rohini,
ND., to go to school in Kansas City, IL.Now, she’s thinking of
moving to Santa Fe, N.M.)
• Datelines
• Put the city name in CAPITAL LETTERS, usually
followed by the state, country or territory
where the city is located.
DELHI,INDIA
CITY REPORTS
• City Reports including special correspondents
stories will not have a dateline.
• All other reports will carry dateline like- Lucknow,
January 15, March will not be shortened in dateline
• City reports by our reporters will carry this byline-
By our special correspondents
• City Reports from agencies will carry the name of
the agency at the end of the first or second para.
For eg- reports PTI
Other reports
• In a dateline avoid mention of the country except where
it is absolutely essential- when a country has to be
mentioned do not put it in brackets. Put it in comma-
Britain, Jan 15(Reuters)
• No abbreviation are allowed in the body of a report
except where well know org and companies are
mentioned.
• Do not use “Mr” Modi, Call either the PM or Narendra
Modi.
• Designation of ministers should come before their
names.
Academic Degrees
• Avoid abbreviations: Billy Bob, who has a doctorate in
philosophy.
• Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree, a master’s, etc.
• There is no apostrophe in Bachelor of Arts or Master of
Science.
• Use abbreviations such as B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. only when
the need to identify many people by degree on first
reference would make the preferred method cumbersome;
use the abbreviations only after a full name and set the
abbreviations off with commas: Samuel Cotton, Ph.D.,
lectured yesterday on bioethics.
• Dates
• Capitalize months.
• When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only
Jan., Feb., Aug.,Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. (e.g. Oct. 4 was the
day of her birthday.)
• When a phrase lists only a month and year, do not separate
the month and the year with commas. (e.g. February 1980
was his best month.)
• When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the
year with commas.
• (e.g. Aug. 20, 1964, was the day they had all been waiting for.)
Time
• Use figures except for noon and midnight
• Use a colon to separate hours from minutes
(e.g. 2:30 a.m.)
• 4 o’clock is acceptable, but time listings with
a.m. or p.m. are preferred.
Punctuation Marks
• Period/ Full stop (.): it is used to mark the end of an idea
represented in a sentence. It is also used after some
abbreviations.
Example: Ram is late for the class. Mr., Mrs. etc.

• Comma (,): separates ideas or elements within a sentence or in


letter writing after the salutation and closing. Example: The
colours in which this car is available are red, golden, silver, blue
and white.
Letter Salutations: Dear Uncle John ,
Separation of two complete sentences: We went to the movies,
and we went to the beach.
• Semicolon (;): connects independent clauses and also shows
closer relationship between the clauses than a period would
show. Ram was hurt ; he knew she only said it to upset him.
• Dash (–): it connects numbers or elements of a compound
adjective. It is used to indicate a break in thought or
sentence structure, introduce a phrase added for emphasis,
definition, or explanation and separate two clauses.
• Quotations Marks (“ ”): are primarily used to mark the
beginning and end of a passage attributed to another and
repeated word for word. Single quotation marks (‘) are used
most frequently for quotes within quotes.
• Parentheses (( )): are curved notations that represent further
thoughts or qualifying remarks. However, parentheses can be
replaced by commas without changing the meaning in most cases.
John and Jane (who were actually half brother and sister) both have
red hair.

• Apostrophe (‘): indicates the omission of a letter or letters from a


word, the possessive case, or the plurals of lowercase letters.
Examples of the apostrophe in use include: Omission of letters from
a word: Possessive case: Sita’s dog bites.

• Question Mark (?): it indicates a direct question when placed at the


end of a sentence. When did Jane leave for the market?
• Exclamation Mark (!): it is used to express a sudden outcry or add emphasis.
Within dialogue: “Holy cow!” screamed Jane. To emphasize a point: My mother-
in-law’s rants make me furious!

• Semicolon (;): connects independent clauses. It shows a closer relationship


between the clauses than a period would show. John was hurt; he knew she only
said it to upset him.

• Hyphen (-): a hyphen is used between the parts of a compound word or name or
between the syllables of a word, especially when divided at the end of a line of
text. Examples of a hyphen in use include: Between a compound name: Mrs.
Smith - Reynolds Within a compound word: back - to – back.

• Ellipsis (…): An ellipsis (three dots) indicates that part of the text has been
intentionally been left out. Example : 1,12,15……., 100.

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