AP Style D

AP Style D

1. Damage vs. Damages

   • Damage = Destruction
     • "Authorities said damage from the storm would total more than $1 billion"
   • Damages = Awarded by a court as compensation for injury, loss, etc
     • "The woman received $25,00 in damages"

2. Datelines

   • Contain a CITY NAME (all caps) followed by name of the state, country or territory.
     • In citing OTHER cities within the body of a story
       • No further info necessary if a city is in same state as city in Dateline
       • Follow the city name with further ID in most cases where it is not in the same state of dateline city.
         • DO NOT refer to Boston, Mass., in a story with the dateline NEW YORK

3. Demolish vs. Destroy

   • Both = completely. Something cannot be partially demolished or destroyed. It is redundant to say "totally demolished" or "totally destroyed"

4. Department

   • List the subject first in news stories, A phrase such as "the department" should be used on the second reference
     • "Agriculture Department and Commerce Department"
     • Exceptions = "Department of Homeland Security"
   • lowercase "department" in plural uses, but CAPITALIZE THE PROPER NAME ELEMENT
     • "the departments of Labor and Justice."
     • "Kissinger said, 'State and Justice must resolve their differences." VS. "Henry Kissinger, the secretary of the state."
       • lowercase the department whenever it stands alone.
   • In stories with US datelines, do not include "U.S." before the titles of government officials.

5. Differnent

   • Takes the preposition "from"

6. Dimensions

   • Spell out "inches, feet, yards," and use figures to indicate and hyphenate adjectival forms before nouns.
     • Depth, height, length, width
     • "He is 5 feet 6 inches tall." VS. "The 5-foot 6-inch man."
       • "The storm left 5 inches of snow"
   • Use apostrophe to indicate feet and quote marks to indicate inches (5'6'') only in technical contexts.

7. Directions vs. Regions

   • lowercase for compass directions
     • "He drove west, the cold front is moving east"
   • Capitalize to designate regions
     • "The North was victorious, the South shall rise again, The candidate developed a Southern strategy."
   • With Nation Name, Lowercase unless part of proper name or are used to designate a politically divided nation.
     • northern France, western United States.
       • Northern Ireland, South Korea

8. Disabled, Handicapped

   • Avoid descriptions that connote pity, such as "afflicted with" or "suffers from"

9. Dollars

   • ALWAYS lowercase and don't link numerals and word by a hyphen.
     • "he is worth $4.35 million. He proposed a $300 billion budget."

10. Drunk, Drunken

    • Drunk= Spelling of the adjective used AFTER a form of the verb to be. "He was drunk"
    • Drunken = The spelling of the adjective used BEFORE NOUNS. "A drunken driver. Drunken driving."