By SCOTT CHARTON
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Journalism student Renee Fullerton has carried the thick, dog-eared paperback just about everywhere. To class. To work. To lunch. To the library.

To the gym, where she propped it on a treadmill and paced herself by perusing entries from AAA ("Formerly the American Automobile Association.") to ZIP code ("Use all-caps ZIP for Zoning Improvement Plan, but always lowercase the word code.")

Fullerton is lugging and learning The Associated Press Stylebook, a title perhaps unfamiliar to most people but shaper of the very sentences they read, in newspapers, magazines, books and online.

"People say, 'Oh, another journalism geek,' but it's important to know your way around the Stylebook, so from newspaper to newspaper it's the same lexicon and hopefully making it a little more precise and easy for readers," says Fullerton, 21, a senior at the University of Missouri.

Is it doughnut or donut? Barbecue or barbeque or Bar-B-Q? Baloney or bologna?

The Stylebook is a guide to usage — not only for words, grammar and punctuation, but for taste and touchy subjects and consistent writing in a changing culture.

By the way, it's doughnut, barbecue — and the Stylebook notes bologna is the sausage and baloney "is foolish or exaggerated talk."

This summer, the Stylebook turned 50.

The first version — called a Style Book — was partly prompted by a technical change in how the AP transmitted news, shifting from all capital letters to uppercase and lowercase.

There was also a need for consistency among a growing and widespread writing staff producing stories for newspapers with an array of style preferences. The 1953 Style Book ran to more than 50 pages and was stapled together, said Norm Goldstein, AP's Stylebook editor since 1989.

Stylebooks weren't new in 1953; the Chicago Tribune once dictated certain phonetic spellings as the most sensible usage, such as "frate" instead of "freight."

But the AP had such broad reach that Editor & Publisher predicted in June 1953 that "Newspaper Style throughout the country will be affected" by the new publication.

It was. It is.

Fifty summers later, the Stylebook is still considered by many editors to be the last word before publication and the first reference to which new and veteran writers turn. Almost 2 million copies of the Stylebook, including a retail edition, have been distributed since 1977.

"When I hear a question in the newsroom about, let's say, the proper way to write a street address, the question in response is always, 'What does the Stylebook say?' It's the starting place," said Duane Schrag, editor and publisher of The Chanute (Kan.) Tribune.

Eventually, such enduring advice becomes ingrained in a writer. Still, the Stylebook is kept close at hand, in Chanute and Columbia as well as the AP's world editing headquarters in New York.

"I just sit and read the Stylebook," says journalism student Fullerton. "Even if I don't remember it all, it creates a spark. Down the road, I will think, 'Is this word hyphenated?' and maybe the answer will come to me without looking."

It's OK to look (the Stylebook says OK is OK, but "Do not use okay").

Looking is not just OK, it's encouraged.

That's the idea: a handy reference based in what retired AP President Louis D. Boccardi called in one Stylebook foreword "a simple belief in accuracy, clarity and consistency. You could call this book a writer's best friend. Or perhaps a reader's."

As in any friendship, there can be disagreements.

In 2001, the AP dropped the use of the courtesy titles Miss, Mrs. and Ms., opting for referring to women as well as men by their last names on second reference. Courtesy titles are now used by AP in newspaper reports only when a woman requests one.

In announcing the style change on courtesy titles, the AP said it reflected "the preference of the vast majority of the news cooperative's newspaper members." That preference had been evident for years, and the AP stood out among news organizations in using courtesy titles, a practice some called outdated and demeaning to women.

Allyson Longueira, 29, considers the debate about courtesy titles so interesting that it is the tentative subject of her master's thesis at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

"It's because the AP Stylebook's influence is so pervasive. When I'm editing, I turn to it several times a night. Usually I'm flipping through it five minutes before my story's due, just to be sure," she said.

Editor Goldstein said Stylebook changes reflect changes in society — after ample consideration. A committee of AP executives debates changes, but the final decision usually is left to the AP's executive editor, Goldstein said.

By the mid-1980s, the term AIDS debuted in the Stylebook, with advice that on second reference it should be explained as acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Today, AIDS stands alone on all references because of global familiarity with the acronym.

"We take a careful look at usage, and what we want to print in a Stylebook, we expect to last. Dictionaries have the same challenge," Goldstein said from New York. "It is in the Stylebook because it has become a valid term."

Goldstein keeps an active file of suggested additions, deletions and changes, along with complaints and compliments. He receives e-mails each day from writers and editors, usually inquiring, at times dissenting.

From Oregon comes a query about what to call a state agency on second reference. From Florida, an editor wants to know whether East Africa and West Africa are proper constructions. An intern writing golf photo captions asks about proper placement of a comma.

One such strong opinion came in an e-mail questioning why the words "Negro" and "colored" were still part of a Stylebook entry in 2003. The entry, for "black," calls the word "preferred usage for those of the Negro race. (Use Negro only in names of organizations or in quotations.) Do not use colored as a synonym."

Goldstein's correspondent asserted that "preferred usage to those of this race is African-American and Black is just an alternate form of the word. Negro and colored (also still in the Stylebook) should both be marked as derogatory terms. I am appalled either word is in there."

The Stylebook has evolved; while a 1970 edition allowed the use of "Negro" in story references to a black person, it admonished: "Do NOT use 'colored' for Negro except in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."

Goldstein said the Stylebook's entries about race are under constant review, and the entry on "black" is at the top of the discussion list for the next edition. "It is something we realize is sensitive and we will try to find the best way to express it," he said.

The 2003 Stylebook added an entry for "hillbilly": "Usually a derogatory term for an Appalachian backwoods or mountain person. Avoid unless in direct quotes or special context. Mountaineer is a suggested alternative."

That brought a humorous tweak from Oliver Wiest, editor of The Sedalia (Mo.) Democrat, who wrote in an e-mail: "Sedalia is several hundred miles from the Appalachians, but I can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a hillbilly."

Goldstein chuckled and said that entry is under review, too. (Sept. 13, 2003)