Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Drowning: Write With (AP) Style

Was William McDowell in the navy, or the Navy?
It's the Navy. AP Style, under "Navy" . . .

Capitalize when referring to U.S. forces: the U.S.Navy, the Navy, Navy policy . . . lowercase when referring to the naval forces of other nations: the British navy.

Was 10-year-old Edward McGorwan a boy or a young man?

A boy. AP Style, under "boy" . . .

Applicable until 18th birthday is reached. Use man or young man afterward.

In first reference, is it Dr. Catrina Lowrie or just Dr. Lowrie?

It's Dr. Catrina Lowrie.
We always use someone's first and last names in a first reference.

But in a second reference, we drop both the name and title. So it becomes Lowrie, not Dr. Lowrie, in subsequent references.

Plus, is it East Lansing, Michigan or just East Lansing?

It's the latter, in this case. Looking under
cities and towns directs you to check datelines for guidelines on when they should be followed by a state or a country name.

A dateline notes the city where the writer is filing his or her story from. Under that heading, this is what it says about handing cities within stories:

In citing other cities within the body of a story, no further information is necessary if a city is in the same state as the datelined city. Make an exception only if confusion would result.

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