General AP Writing Guidelines

Abbreviations

Avoid abbreviations as much as possible in internal and external correspondence.
For addresses mentioned in sentence form, Street, Avenue and Boulevard may all be abbreviated as follows: St. Ave. Blvd. All others should be spelled
out where possible. Compass points like North, West, etc. in addresses should be abbreviated as one letter with a period. P.O. box addresses also have
periods. Streets named by number from First through Ninth are spelled out; all others appear numerically.
Hours listed in terms of AM and PM should appear as follows, with a space before and periods separating the letters.
E.g. 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Common acronyms such as IRA can be abbreviated if the first instance is fully spelled out with the acronym following in parenthesis.
E.g. Individual Retirement Account (IRA). Subsequent appearances do not require parenthesis.

There is only one space between the end of one sentence and the start of another, not two as with the typewriter.
Do not indent the text at the start of a new paragraph; insert one blank line between paragraphs.
Avoid putting words in all caps and avoid using exclamation points. Use italics, bolding and underlining sparingly.
In a simple list of more than two items, the comma is dropped between the last two.
E.g. red, white and blue
The use of contractions in marketing materials is preferred when appropriate, as it creates a more natural, conversational tone for a reader.
E.g. it's instead of it is
The words "Internet" and "Web" are proper nouns and are capitalized, unless used as an informal, compound word.
E.g. World Wide Web, Web, Web address, website, webmaster, webcast
Numbers one through nine are spelled out; all others appear numerically, unless used as the first word of a sentence.