Intro to The Associated Press Style | People’s titles and names

This video introduces The Associated Press Stylebook (0:34) and talks about stating a person’s job title and name the first time the person is mentioned in the story (02:12). Two kinds of job titles, formal titles and occupational descriptions, are then explained (02:26). Also explained are the rules for long job titles that should be placed after the name, lowercased and set off by commas (04:35). The video continues with a short section on not being able to use courtesy titles or titles of respect in AP Style (05:17). The video then focuses on the rules for people’s names (06:44) depending on their age (06:51) and on how many people with the same last name are mentioned in the story (07:19). A Regency-era vent related to Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” example (07:30) is here: 09:11. How to address Colonel Brandon in AP Style is explained at 09:42. (The previous sentence may also be read as “How to address a person who has a military title in AP Style is explained at 09:42”). How to include preferred names is also explained (10:06). The video ends with an example of using people’s titles and names in a photo caption (10:42).

This video heavily relies on photos and video footage created by American space agency NASA.