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AP style – titles and states. Composition titles, job titles, state names. Composition titles. Books, magazines, movies, computer games, album and song titles, radio and TV program titles, lectures, speeches, works of art. No italics – ever. General guidelines.
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AP style – titles and states Composition titles, job titles, state names
Composition titles • Books, magazines, movies, computer games, album and song titles, radio and TV program titles, lectures, speeches, works of art. • No italics – ever.
General guidelines • Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters. • Capitalize an article – a, an or the – or a word of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.
More … • Put quotation marks around the names of all such works except the Bible and books that are primarily catalogs of reference material. • Do not use quotation marks around such software titles as WordPerfect and Windows.
Translate • Translate a foreign title into English unless a work is generally known by its foreign name. For more on this one make sure to consult your stylebook.
Examples • “The Star-Spangled Banner.” • “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” • “Of Mice and Men” • “CBS Evening News” • “The Office” • Encyclopedia Britannica • Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second Edition
Titles • In general, capitalize formal titles when they are used directly before a person’s name. • Informal titles used before a person’s name are lowercase. • If the title is used after the person’s name, it is lowercase.
For example • Central Michigan University Director of Public Relations Steve Smith. • Central Michigan University spokesman Steve Smith. • Steve Smith, director of public relations for Central Michigan University.
Also • Lowercase and spell out titles when they are not used with an individual’s name.- The president issued a statement.- The pope gave his blessing.
Abbreviated titles • Some titles are abbreviated when used before a name. • Dr., Gov., Lt. Gov., Rep., Sen. • Also, some military titles are abbreviated when used before a name. See military titles in the book:- Gen. David Patraeus- Army Sgt. Maj. John Jones.
State names • All state names are spelled out completely when they stand alone. • Eight state names are never abbreviated: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Utah. • Abbreviate a state when used in conjunction with a city, town, village or military base in most references.
Abbreviating • When abbreviating, we don’t use the postal abbreviations, but the three-four letter varieties:- Billings, Mont. Carson, Penn.Mobile, Ala. Eugene, Ore. • Politicians and party affiliation: D-Ala., R-Mont. See the party affiliation entry in the stylebook for more.
Some cities stand alone • Many of the larger cities in the United States and around the world don’t require any state or country to be mentioned afterward. • See the dateline section of the book. • New York, Atlanta, Miami, Denver, Salt Lake City, London, Moscow, Montreal, Cairo, Stockholm
Cities in Michigan • In general, when writing about cities in the state of Michigan, no need to put Mich. after the word. • An exception: If the context would confuse the reader. • For example: Paris, Mich.Wyoming, Mich.St. Louis, Mich.
State of constructions • Lowercase the word state in all state of constructions. • EX. He is a resident of the state of Michigan.