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bloodygranuaileStylebooks aren’t necessarily meant to be read all the way through, any more than the dictionary is. They’re reference books, and they’re meant to be used so you just look up the bit you like. But as many dorky people end up reading the dictionary straight through (I was never one of them, which I am actually a bit surprised at), I like to read most reference books I have to use straight through, to get a more complete idea of what exactly is in it and a better feel for what and where I need to look things up. Which means I really ought to have finished reading The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2011 several months ago, instead of just looking around in it for things.
As far as I am concerned, the AP Stylebook does not hold a candle to the Chicago Manual of Style, either in terms of its organization or its editorial decisions. It’s organized alphabetically, like a dictionary, except for the bits that are separated off into their own sections, apparently just because the editors feel like it. There is a separate punctuation section, but no separate grammar section. There is a separate social media section, but not a separate politics or government section. The alphabetical stuff can be difficult for looking up grammar questions because you don’t always know what aspect of the question it’s filed under, whereas with the CMoS you can almost always just look at the table of contents and immediately figure out the one or two places it’s most likely to be. The grammar and usage bits are often short, which you’d think would be useful because it means they don’t make a whole lot of exceptions to things, but often just means that your answer isn’t addressed explicitly and you have to read through their examples to see if a similar construction is used as an example. And there is a sad lack of tables.
That said, you can still learn a lot from reading it, because it has entries discussing the proper ways to report on a wide variety of random things that get reported on, so it’s a great collection of random facts. The sections discussing media law and ethics are also really interesting, as are some of the longer entries that discuss news issues at greater length. There’s also a surprising amount of discussion of words’ histories, which is always fascinating.
What there is not, and what I would have found very useful, is a short discussion of style and structure on an article level, and a breakdown of the sort of journalistic jargon that you probably don’t want to actually use in the story itself (for example, there is no entry for “nut graph”). I suppose journalists are already supposed to know that stuff, but I’d like to have a short cheat sheet at my fingertips anyway.
Most of it was a fairly enjoyable read, still, because I’m a dork like that.
As far as I am concerned, the AP Stylebook does not hold a candle to the Chicago Manual of Style, either in terms of its organization or its editorial decisions. It’s organized alphabetically, like a dictionary, except for the bits that are separated off into their own sections, apparently just because the editors feel like it. There is a separate punctuation section, but no separate grammar section. There is a separate social media section, but not a separate politics or government section. The alphabetical stuff can be difficult for looking up grammar questions because you don’t always know what aspect of the question it’s filed under, whereas with the CMoS you can almost always just look at the table of contents and immediately figure out the one or two places it’s most likely to be. The grammar and usage bits are often short, which you’d think would be useful because it means they don’t make a whole lot of exceptions to things, but often just means that your answer isn’t addressed explicitly and you have to read through their examples to see if a similar construction is used as an example. And there is a sad lack of tables.
That said, you can still learn a lot from reading it, because it has entries discussing the proper ways to report on a wide variety of random things that get reported on, so it’s a great collection of random facts. The sections discussing media law and ethics are also really interesting, as are some of the longer entries that discuss news issues at greater length. There’s also a surprising amount of discussion of words’ histories, which is always fascinating.
What there is not, and what I would have found very useful, is a short discussion of style and structure on an article level, and a breakdown of the sort of journalistic jargon that you probably don’t want to actually use in the story itself (for example, there is no entry for “nut graph”). I suppose journalists are already supposed to know that stuff, but I’d like to have a short cheat sheet at my fingertips anyway.
Most of it was a fairly enjoyable read, still, because I’m a dork like that.