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Although some dictionaries now list “woman” (or “women”) as an adjective, you should not use it that way, according to AP Style. You should use “female” instead of “woman” in this case. For example, you would write “female police officer,” not “woman police officer.” You wouldn’t write “man police officer,” would you?
Here are some more tips from AP, via Ask the Editor:
- Blog post titles should be put in quotes. For example: You should read my blog post titled “Squirrels taking over the world.”
- In recipes, in all cases, use numerals instead of writing out the number.
- Avoid calling a chairwoman or chairman a “chair.” A chair, as the AP questioner said, is something you sit on.
- “Clean up” is the correct style when it’s a verb, and “cleanup” when it’s a noun or adjective.
- AP says you don’t need to use a hyphen when using mph. So it would be “100 mph car.”
- Do hyphenate “small business” when it precedes “owner.” Otherwise you could be calling the owner small.
From the latest AP style changes to timely copy editing reminders, check out everything you need to know to make your copy clean.
