Social Media Guidelines Now Available in AP Stylebook


The 2010 Full AP Stylebook now contains 42 new social media guidelines. The Associated Press Stylebook is traditionally an A-to-Z listing of style that is the general standard for the journalism industry. The book is a reference for consistency and accuracy on points including clarification on topics such as abbreviation, capitalization, grammar, punctuation, spelling, numerals and titles. Now there is an entirely new section devoted to social media, including items like:

  • The term “Web site” is now “website”
  • Break out”smart phone” into two words
  • Hyphenate “e-reader”
  • A variety of acronyms used for texting and IMing (ROFL, BRB, POS)

Also included is standardization of terms such as app, blogs, click-throughs, friend and unfriend, metadata, RSS, search engine optimization, trending, widget and wiki. Along with these standards, the Stylebook offer basic rules for how social media should (and shouldn’t) be used by journalist.

How did AP up with the changes? They solicited reader suggestions for this new Social Media section and received 237 responses. Did you contribute?

Nikki Katz is the Managing Editor for the BlogWorld Blog. Feel free to follow her Twitter @nikki_blogworld and @katzni

Image Credit: AP

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About Nikki

Nikki Katz is the Managing Editor for the BlogWorld.com. She has been a freelance writer and blogger for over a decade, writing for About.com, iVillage and b5media. Feel free to follow her Twitter @nikki_blogworld and @katzni.

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I was BEYOND ecstatic when AP announced their changes -- especially the "website" rule. I finally confessed at one point that I had broken that rule (knowingly) for years. http://bit.ly/b2fAR1

Yeah, I thought of a lot of them were interesting - especially the change of "friend" to a noun and a verb!!

Nikki,

This news about the updated Stylebook is quiet interesting, especially in terms of the highlights mentioned such as the word "website."

I wasn't a contributor but will update my library with this new edition. I appreciate the notification.