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AP Stylebook Workshops


Learn AP style mechanics and content guidance straight from the source, Oct. 1-Nov. 19

Join editors from The Associated Press for one or both engaging AP Stylebook Workshops in fall 2025, and you'll build your knowledge of AP style and your confidence in how to apply it to your work.

First, AP Stylebook Workshop 101: Master the Mechanics will focus on the fundamentals including punctuation, capitalization and numerals.

Immediately following, AP Stylebook Workshop 201: Refine Your Content will cover the big-picture questions of how to improve your writing and editing to make your copy clear and compelling.

Participate in live virtual sessions with the editors who make AP style or watch recordings at your convenience. You’ll get all the decks to review, as well. You can ask Stylebook editor Anna Jo Bratton your AP style questions in the online classroom’s discussion forum, in addition to during each webinar’s Q&A.

Each registration includes access to AP Stylebook Online, our searchable and customizable AP style resource, as well as AP Stylebook Study Guides, a series of self-scoring quizzes that reinforce the workshop's lessons.

Register now to begin your access to Stylebook Online, Stylebook Study Guides and the online classroom’s extensive on-demand videos right away.

Each AP Stylebook Workshop sells for $299.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT AP STYLEBOOK WORKSHOPS FOR YOUR NEEDS:

  • How many participants do you have?
    (Enter your count to the right.)

  • Which AP Stylebook Workshops do you want to attend?
    AP Stylebook Workshop 101: Master the Mechanics, Oct. 1-22
    AP Stylebook Workshop 201: Refine Your Content, Oct. 29-Nov. 19
    Both the AP Stylebook Workshops

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— Watch a mix of short instructional videos and recordings of hourlong webinars.
— Develop your knowledge using access to AP Stylebook Online and AP Stylebook Study Guides, with access available as soon as you register.
— Keep access to AP Stylebook Workshop content, including the online classroom, AP Stylebook Online and AP Stylebook Study Guides, through Feb. 27, 2026.


— The AP Stylebook Workshop is offered in partnership with Edmaker, experts in online learning communities.
— Edmaker hosts the course on its web-based platform. There's nothing to download or install, but you will need a current browser and reliable internet connectivity.
— All live webinars take place on Zoom. For best results, run a current version of Zoom on your desktop or laptop computer. You can participate on your mobile device, but you will have a richer experience on a computer with a bigger screen so you can see the text on screen and engage in chat. If your security policy prevents installing Zoom, ask your technology team if you can watch the sessions using web-based Zoom as an alternative.
— After you register for the AP Stylebook Workshop on the Stylebook website, you will receive a claim code via email. When you redeem that code via the link included in the email, you will get an email from Edmaker to access the online workshop and a separate email from APStylebook.com with access to Stylebook Online and Stylebook Study Guides.
— If you sign up on behalf of multiple users, you will get an email with a set of claim codes. Share one code with each user who you would like to participate, along with the activation code link. As your users redeem their claim codes, they will get their activation emails from Edmaker and APStylebook.com.
— EdMaker works best when you have JavaScript and cookies enabled. Flash and other plugins are not required.


— Your primary instructor is Anna Jo Bratton, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook. Anna Jo has served on the AP Stylebook committee for more than a decade. She played a critical role in devising guidance around business, technology and disabilities, as well as several other topics. Anna Jo became Stylebook editor after serving on the Top Stories Hub, where she edited stories from around the globe. She started at AP in 2007 as a political reporter in Nebraska and held a variety of editing roles in the West Region, based in Phoenix, before serving as U.S. enterprise editor and global enterprise editor in New York. She graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a degree in journalism in 2003.

Jimmy Golen, covers Boston sports for The Associated Press, with a little bit of sports law and Olympic beach volleyball and curling mixed in.

Christina Paciolla, a highly respected editor with a track record of developing talent and driving coverage of major stories, has been appointed The Associated Press’ news editor for Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey. A lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area, Paciolla will be based there and oversee the AP’s all-formats team of journalists dedicated to covering the compelling politics, rich communities and changing ways of life in the three-state region. Paciolla has covered the Philadelphia market and the broader East region for her entire career. Prior to joining the AP as an editor on the East regional desk in 2015, she worked as Philadelphia city editor for Metro US, overseeing a team of reporters and freelance writers and photographers while also covering major stories herself. Before her stint at Metro, Paciolla worked as a reporter and editor at various local news outlets in the Philadelphia metro area, covering state politics and other issues.

Ellen Jovin is a cofounder of Syntaxis, a communication skills training firm, and the author of several books on language, most recently the national bestseller Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian (HarperCollins, July 2022). She is also the creator of a traveling pop-up grammar advice stand called the Grammar Table, whose adventures serve as the basis of that book. Ellen has a B.A. from Harvard College in German studies and an M.A. from UCLA in comparative literature, and has studied twenty-five languages for fun. She lives with her husband, Brandt Johnson, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Peter Sokolowski joined Merriam-Webster in 1994 as the company's first French-language editor, and has since written definitions for many of the company's dictionaries. He also contributes blog articles, podcasts, and videos for the online dictionary, and his writing has appeared in Slate, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He is a frequent guest on national radio and television, and was named among TIME’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013. He leads workshops on dictionaries and the English language for the U.S. State Department, and serves as pronouncer for spelling bees worldwide. He is the co-host of Word Matters, a podcast about words by dictionary editors. Peter attended the University of Paris and earned his M.A. in French Literature at the University of Massachusetts. He is also a freelance musician and a music host at New England Public Radio.

Pia Sarkar, a veteran reporter, editor and newsroom leader, has been named deputy editor for the east for The Associated Press, charged with helping to oversee news coverage in 10 states. Sarkar, served most recently as executive editor of The American Lawyer website and the Am Law Daily newsletters, where she provided a strategic direction for the site and led a team onsite and remotely in producing competitive content on national law firm business. Sarkar spent seven years as a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, where she covered some of the most iconic companies in the area, including Gap, Apple and Levi Strauss. At the Daily Journal legal publication, where she spent three years as associate editor, Sarkar oversaw coverage of California’s Proposition 8 gay marriage ban and its eventual undoing on appeal. She also worked as a reporter at TheStreet.com, a financial news site, covering national retail chains and major internet companies; at Pensions & Investments; at The Record of Woodland Park, New Jersey; and for The Providence Journal in Rhode Island. Outside the newsroom, Sarkar served as president, vice president and board member of the Asian American Journalists Association in San Francisco.

Aaron Morrison, race and ethnicity news editor for The Associated Press, joined AP in 2020 as a national writer on the R&E team, and has reported extensively on the intersection of race, justice and culture. In Fall 2021, Aaron also became an adjunct lecturer in the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Aaron's work has previously appeared in outlets such as The Appeal, Mic and The Record of Bergen County. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and their newborn daughter.

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press, currently oversees AP's Trends + Culture coverage globally. He is a veteran correspondent and news leader who has been with AP since 1992. He has served in a variety of roles both in the field and at AP headquarters, ranging from national correspondent to China news editor to director of Asia-Pacific news. In 2003, he reopened AP's Baghdad bureau in the days after the U.S. invasion. For 30 years, he has specialized in writing about American and global culture and how it changes and evolves. He has covered stories from the aftermath of 9/11 in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq to presidential elections, the 1997 death of Princess Diana in London and seven Olympic Games. He is the author of the 2007 book "Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song," and is currently at work on his next book, "Unsorted But Significant: Travels Through Dementia, Grief and the Things Parents Leave Behind."

AP Stylebook Workshops


Program

All live sessions take place on Zoom, 11 a.m. to noon Eastern on Wednesdays.

The online classroom includes an interactive Q&A where you can submit your questions in advance for possible inclusion in live sessions. We also offer live Q&A via Zoom.


AP Stylebook Workshop 101: Master the Mechanics, Oct. 1-22

Week 1, Oct. 1: Get picky about punctuation

Incorrect punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence and undermine your credibility. Immerse yourself in this quick refresher course that covers the basics of how to punctuate your writing with authority.

This session will help you:

  • Pick the right punctuation, and avoid the unnecessary.
  • Learn about commas, periods or semicolons; discover how to use exclamation points. and parentheses; and see why rules for quotation marks are worth searing into memory.
  • Use the Stylebook to solve punctuation quandaries.

Speaker: Jimmy Golen, AP sports writer


Week 2, Oct. 8: Capitalization and numbers

In this session, we’ll talk through rules about capitalization and numbers, and the many exceptions. We’ll teach you how to make the best choice for your writing when the rules are unclear.

This session will help you:

  • Avoid unnecessary capitalization.
  • Learn how to justify using a capital; also, remember your audience.
  • Interpret the dictionary’s advice on capitals.
  • Learn when to use numerals and when to use words.
  • Gain insight on how to navigate the exceptions.

Speaker: Anna Jo Bratton, AP Stylebook editor


Week 3, Oct. 15: Clarify your copy

Choose the right words. Often, what would be good writing is confusing because the words aren’t well-known, ideas aren’t explained well or concepts are confusing. Usually mistakes in writing come from the writer not understanding the material, or not knowing how to convey it in a universal way.

This session will help you:

  • Cut the cliches and ax the acronyms
  • Learn how and when to adapt your internal style rules to suit your medium.
  • Get tips for self-editing.

Speaker: Christina Paciolla, deputy director for U.S. text production, AP Stylebook committee member


Week 4, Oct. 22: FAQs from 50 States

Ellen Jovin has crisscrossed the United States answering questions and settling debates at her pop-up advice stand, Grammar Table. She’ll join us to share the language questions that vex Americans the most – as well as a few of Ellen’s favorite obscure questions.

In this session, Ellen will join us to discuss:

  • What confuses and frustrates people about American English.
  • How AP style addresses those questions, and how those answers might differ from other language guides.
  • Why clarity is the ultimate goal, because communication matters more than pedantry.

Speaker: Ellen Jovin, best-selling author and Grammar Table proprietor



AP Stylebook Workshop 201: Refine Your Content, Oct. 29-Nov. 19

Week 1, Oct. 29: Clarify your copy: Use AP style to sharpen your writing and editing

Learn core style rules that can help sharpen your writing. Start with a compelling lead. Use succinct language. Cut excess detail. Avoid cliches and jargon. Use quotations only if they are the best way to tell the story and be careful how you paraphrase.

This course will help you:

  • Write a solid nut graph.
  • Explain unfamiliar terms.
  • Use easy-to-understand explanations of complex ideas.

Speaker: Christina Paciolla, deputy director for U.S. text production, AP Stylebook committee member


Week 2, Nov. 5: Get perspective about English’s rules from Merriam-Webster’s editor at large

Why does the English language sometimes feel like a complicated mess? Find out from Merriam-Webster editor at large, Peter Sokolowski. He’ll share guidance on what to do when there's no clear right and wrong or when the rules are gray and require judgment. You’ll come away with guidance on how and when to use the dictionary and Stylebook in tandem.

  • Learn about the forthcoming Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Twelfth Edition.
  • Explore the ways the dictionary assesses and recommends "usage."
  • Take a close look at hot-button language peeves including literally, very unique and hopefully.

Speaker: Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster


Week 3, Nov. 12: Tell accurate, inclusive stories

Make sure you are writing accurate, fair and inclusive content. Inclusivity isn’t just a buzzword: It’s key to ensuring your work is relevant to a wide audience and doesn’t build barriers to communication.

In this session, you will:

  • Learn strategies for how to make your writing more compelling by including an array of voices.
  • Consider the pitfalls of writing that isn’t inclusive.
  • Discuss how to bring these principles into your writing process.

Speakers:
Pia Sarkar, business editor, AP Stylebook team member
Aaron Morrison, race and ethnicity team news editor, AP Stylebook team member


Week 4, Nov. 19: Make better judgment calls

Style in writing calls for constant decision-making. In this session, you’ll learn how and when to make judgments about what to include, what to cut and how to frame your story, based on your audience and story format.

In this session, you will:

  • Hone your judgment on story framing, based on audience and format.
  • Talk about when to break the rules.
  • Consider how and when to adapt your internal style rules to suit your medium.

Speakers:
Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation, AP Stylebook committee member
Jimmy Golen, AP sports writer