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A new primary dictionary for the AP Stylebook
During a panel at the ACES: The Society for Editing national conference in San Diego on Friday, AP Stylebook Editor Paula Froke announced that Merriam-Webster is now the Stylebook’s official dictionary, among other updates.
The switch to Merriam-Webster is the AP Stylebook’s first change to its primary dictionary in decades. The full changeover will take effect when the AP Stylebook, 57th Edition, is published on May 29.
Peter Sokolowski, editor at large of Merriam-Webster, joined the ACES session alongside Froke to announce the collaboration.
Froke also announced new and updated AP Stylebook entries that are now available on AP Stylebook Online. They include:
- Expanded guidance on climate change, expanding AP’s use of the term climate crisis and adding new entries including community solar, geothermal, lithium ion, energy transition and hydrogen.
- Revised guidance on bulleted lists, saying not to use a period after a single word or a phrase in each item in a list. Do, however, use a period at the end of a complete sentence in a bulleted list.
- Consolidation of commonly used prefixes into one prefixes entry, and of commonly used suffixes into one suffixes entry. And a change for consistency: We no longer generally use a hyphen with these prefixes: out-, post-, pre-, re-.
- Updated guidance on the terms Native Americans, Indigenous people(s) and American Indians.
The AP Stylebook is the definitive resource for journalists and a must-have reference for writers, editors, students and professionals. It provides fundamental guidelines for spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style, and helps writers and editors in all fields navigate complex and evolving language questions. Find AP Stylebook on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and online.