Do I use serial commas or not? Should I capitalize government and federal? What about Senate-confirmed appointments? Are those capitalized even when the title doesn’t precede the name? Is embassy capitalized? These are just a few drops in a bucket full of differences between the Associated Press Stylebook and U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual.
The conundrum: keeping my brain from exploding from the laborious task of using the right styles for grad school and my government job (yes, I had to think twice whether to capitalize government in this situation!) When I started my job as a writer/editor for the Department of State’s Office of Inspector General, I had to forget everything I learned as an Army journalist whose bible was the AP Stylebook and learn to love GPO. My brain rebelled for a while and suffered migraine-like withdrawal. But eventually, the pain ebbed and like most change, I got used to it. However, that blissful nirvana came to a screeching halt when I started my second grad school course--public communication writing. All of a sudden, I was thrown back into the world of AP and forced to balance the teeter-totter of right and wrong between AP and GPO.
Fortunately, there’s a silver lining to this daily mental torture. Practice makes perfect, so constantly consulting both style guides not only keeps me on my toes, it also forces me to learn these differences. Eventually, I’ll only have to consult the books for uncommon style applications.
What happens when I’m done with grad school? Will I have to unlearn AP style once again? Hopefully by then I’ll have transitioned into a government job that shuns GPO and embraces AP. Meanwhile, I’ll stock up on Excedrin Migraine…just in case!
-Misha-
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