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Nerd Note: Using Abbreviations in Your Writing
Abbreviations are tricky because you don’t want your writing to look like alphabet soup, but you also don’t want to insult or confuse your reader by spelling out things that commonly are known by their...
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Nerd Note: Writing Academic Degrees
If you’re writing at a university or on an education beat, chances are great that you’ll reference academic degrees. The Associated Press Stylebook provides specific rules to negate questions about how...
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Nerd Note: Writing Academic Departments
There are just some things you are guaranteed to reference when writing about a university or on an education beat. I wrote last week about how to write academic degrees. This post is on the related...
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Nerd Note: Writing Addresses
Addresses are an inescapable part of reporting and writing. You must write the official address with any business name you ever use. You also frequently must refer to general locations. So, it’s...
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What Constitutes Breaking News?
A Supreme Court decision, a plane crash in the Alps, Saudi Arabia military action in Yemen, and deadly tornadoes in my state. All of those items seem like pretty big news to me, and I received breaking...
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The AP Releases Expanded 2015 Stylebook
It’s like Christmas for nerds, only in May. The 2015 AP Stylebook was released today. Ok, I didn’t mean the whole rhyming thing, but it really is a great day! The Stylebook contains 300 new or revised...
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The 8 Best Apps for Students Who Want to Stay Informed
Apparently news quizzes are difficult. I wasn’t really aware of this until last academic year when I began giving weekly current events quizzes in my introductory public relations course. Some students...
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AP Changed the Internet
The internet is no longer a formal place. The Associated Press made their annual announcement of changes to the 2016 Stylebook at this week’s ACES conference. The biggest changes were to web-related...
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June Means AP Stylebook Changes
Just when we think we grasp more AP Style than we’re confused by, the Associated Press goes and changes it. Perhaps they’re just trying to make sure we’re paying attention? The Associated Press made...
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Why I Force My Students to Learn AP Style
I’ve been called the “AP Style Nazi” and, frankly, I’m just fine with that. The unflattering nickname originated because I force students in all of my writing classes to learn Associated Press Style,...
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