Are you (AP) stylin' yet?

When I was in graduate school, one of the first classes I taught was introductory news writing. My syllabus required students to buy the latest edition of the Associated Press Stylebook. I still require this in all my editing and writing courses. One of my best students in that long-ago class, who happened to be the daughter of a professor at the J-school, brought in her dad's 20-year-old copy of the book. I told her she -- or her father -- had to fork over the money for a newer version. As I remember, she earned the only A in the class. And I do mean earned.

I didn't share this story to make fun of the student or the professor, who is a great teacher and a respected historian, but rather to remind readers that the AP Stylebook is a living document. Language changes. These days, it seems like new words and phrases are popping up every day. It's up to journalists to keep up with the times. But doing so can be a daunting task for individual news organizations. That's one of the reasons the AP Stylebook is so important.

Each year, the editors at the AP cut things that have become unnecessary, update those that have changed, and add those that are needed. It usually takes a couple of years for the AP to decide whether new words and phrases are worthy of inclusion. In the meantime, it's up to individual editors to make those decisions. The point is to be accurate and consistent.

This year's version of the Stylebook has more than 200 new entries, including "iPhone," "wild card" and "outsourcing." The online version also contains a new section on food.

Among the entries discarded are "WAC," "malarkey" and "barmaid." I've used only one of these words in my 39-year existence. But the next time I'm sipping a cold one at the VFW, and a woman introduces herself as a former WAC, I'll ask the barmaid to pour her one on me. Then I'll whip out my iPhone, check the standings and see how many games my team needs to win in order to clinch a wild card berth. Actually, I don't have an iPhone yet, but as long as the University of Northern Colorado doesn't outsource my job in the next year, I'll have one soon. And that's no malarkey.

The new Stylebook is a steal at $11.75 for member news organizations, $11.75 for college bookstores and $18.95 retail.

Whether you're a student, a professional journalist or a word lover, order yours today by visiting the Associated Press Bookstore. And if you think this book -- or its online version -- is just for print journalists. AP members create and use news in print, audio, video, photo and graphic formats.

And here's some cool info for history geeks like me: The first edition of the AP Stylebook was published in 1953 and ran 62 pages. The 2008 edition features more than 300 pages. For more on the new edition and the history of the book, read the AP's press release.

Call Mumbai and find out where that story is

Just found out that The Orange County Register will outsource some of its copy editing duties to the Indian firm Mindworks Global Media.

According to a story in Editor & Publisher, the move will not affect staffing at the Register. Maybe not, but I can't imagine it not affecting morale.

This reminds me of the moves most radio stations have made in the last few years. A 2007 study by University of Colorado professor Lee Hood found that stations that once produced their own news reports now rely on news that's patched together in far-off cities. According to a University of Colorado news release, Hood said:

"News is how people learn what it means to live in 'this place.' And to have somebody who may not even have been in your community ostensibly deciding what's news in your community, well, I think that's alarming."

I can't help but agree. Now, back to the OC Register. Editing is much more than punctuation, grammar and AP style. Being a competent editor means understanding the community in which you work. How could someone in India know what's important to people in Southern California? A good editor needs to know the not just the names, but also the story behind prominent people, places and institutions. What's next? Letters to the editor being answered by a representative in Calcutta?

I'm curious what readers think.

Long live the copy desk

Finally, a story about copy editors. Happiness in five columns. Well, not exactly. According an opinion piece by Lawrence Downes of The New York Times, the news is not good for those who serve as the newspapers' "last line of defense." First, Downes laments the fact that the Newseum, the monstrous new homage to news on the Mall in Washington, fails to pay its respects to copy editors. After describing what copy editors do for a living, Downes notes that these hallmarks of newsroom history are a dying breed. It was his last line, however, that made me think:

... If newspaper copy editors vanish from the earth, no one is going to notice.

Not true! Sure, copy editors are never noticed, until they make mistakes. During my several years on several copy desks, no one ever said "nice catch on that comma in the third graf" or "great job cutting out the jargon in that police story." And the AP editors never once thanked me for letting them know when the numbers in the box scores they sent didn't add up. But, hey, I'm over it.

Several bloggers chimed in on the Downes article, including Kathy Schenck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

New York Times readers had their say, too. I particularly love this ode, from David Eggenschwiler of Los Angeles:

Praise the poor copy editors, but please don’t bury them. As print and broadcast media descend further into pop gibberish as well as routine solecisms, we need copy editors to slow the slide into bad writing as the public standard. Even with them, I wince my way through newspapers; without them, life wouldn’t be worth living.

And getting back to the Newseum. Although it doesn't boast a specific section dedicated to copy editors, it does have the next best thing. The bathroom tiles are decorated with mistakes and corrections taken from newspapers. Here's an example, from the Web site dcpages.com.

Thanks, I needed that comma

How many commas are required in the following sentence?

According to a police spokesman because the threat was made over the phone the highest possible charge would have been harassment a misdemeanor.

The sentence in question was part of an exercise in my colleague's news writing class.

Ready for the answer? Three.

According to a police spokesman, because the threat was made over the phone, the highest possible charge would have been harassment, a misdemeanor.

My colleague was unsure about the final comma, the one after "harassment." I told him I was sure that a comma was needed, but I didn't know the rule. I have a pretty good "ear" for these things, but when people want to know the rules, I'm often thrown for a loop. I decided to look this one up in my trusty Associated Press Stylebook. Here's what I found. The final two words of the sentence are a "nonessential phrase," which is always preceded by a comma. Here's the Stylebook scoop from an entry titled "essential phrases, nonessential phrases":

An essential phrase is a word or group of words critical to the reader's understanding of what the author has in mind. A nonessential phrase provides more information about something. Although the information may be helpful to the reader's comprehension, the reader would not be misled if the information were not there.

Essential phrases are not set apart with commas.

Example of an essential phrase, also from the Stylebook:

We saw the award-winning movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." (The movie title is essential to the sentence because many films have won awards. It's not obvious to the reader that the author had this title in mind when writing the sentence.)

Example of a nonessential phrase:

We saw the 1975 winner in the Academy Award competition for best picture, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." (Only one movie won the best picture award in 1975, so the title is not essential. Without the title of the movie, the reader might be confused, but the author's meaning is clear.)

In case you were wondering, the same rules apply for essential and nonessential clauses.

Great story. Can you add some words, please?

Brevity. Conciseness. Using words wisely. It's something I try to teach my students. And it's something I hope every good journalist appreciates. But what about the publishers? I guess it depends on which type of publisher you are -- the type who cares about news and understands the business or the type who buys a newspaper to make money. (Can anyone say "oxymoron"?)

It seems that the latter type of publisher is in charge of the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and one of my favorites, the Hartford Courant.

A recent story in Editor & Publisher noted that the Tribune Company is planning to measure reporter productivity by the number of column-inches reporters produce. For all of you with real jobs, a column-inch is a measure used by newspaper people. It's based on a six-column newspaper page. Multiply one standard column across by one inch down and you get a column-inch. This is useful when selling adds and planning newspaper sections.

So what does the length of a story have to do with how well the reporter does his or her job? That's a good question. I mean, like, I guess I could think of something, but right now I'm much too busy padding this paragraph to impress my boss. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not a reporter for the Tribune Company. My mistake. I'll just keep those extra words in for now. No sense taking any chances. You never know who's reading.

This Slate story, which I read on a friend's facebook page, says it much better than I ever could. It's by Michael Kinsley.

I have a related story about the subject of column-inches. When I got my first newspaper job, I was paid by column-inch. I had just completed my first year of college, and I worked as a correspondent for the sports section of the now-defunct Milford Citizen in southern Connecticut. I think I made $1.05 an inch my first summer and got a huge raise to $1.15 an inch after my sophomore year. It was a great experience. I covered some interesting stories and learned a lot from sports editor Dom Amore, who now covers baseball for the Hartford Courant.