I have to admit that I haven't been much of a stickler for making sure that my newspaper staff members follow AP style over the last six years that I have been advising the newspaper. Now, that doesn't mean I don't care about correctness. I do. Misspellings and confused homonyms and periods outside of quotation marks grate on my nerves as they do for any teacher of writing.What I haven't been a stickler about are issues such as "Street" or "St." Frankly, I have been advising the newspaper as a club for six years, and I've been happy if the story meets deadline. "Email" vs. "e-mail" is the last of my worries when our poor editor is ready to throw in the towel because people haven't turned in their work or shown up for a work session.
Today's session on AP style reminded me that next year is going to be AMAZING now that I will actually get to have a newspaper class and teach the kids to be professionals. AP style quizzes? You bet I'm going to have fun with those.
Above everything else, I can't wait to quote Steve Elliott and say: "Where's your style guide?" "Where's your damn style guide?" and "Do I look like your style guide?" :)
Liz Dixon
West Lafayette High School
West Lafayette, Ind.
I've been advising for 2 years, and I, too, worry about grammar and correctness, but I've been going by my trusted and true (that changes all the time) MLA formatting. So this was a true eye-opener for me.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I now know what I can work on with my students...developing our own style guide. That will solve a lot of our problems.
Karla Erdman
Freedom High School
Bethlehem, PA
lol! i like your heading...for me it is hard to know what I am supposed to look up In the AP book...but i guess i'll get better at it through time.
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