The perfect gift for copy nerds

If you care about great writing on the Internet, you ought to support it -- with your money. Subscribe to an online newspaper like The New York Times. Or put a few bucks in the tip jar to reward someone who entertains you on a daily basis.

Or, for that special copy nerd who rocks your world: a subscription to the AP Style Book Online. A subscription costs $25 a year, but discounts are available.


What do you get for your money? All the nerdy goodness of the print version -- chockful of answers to questions that persnickity writers ask. Plus, you get regular updates. Here's an example, the latest update:

Editor's Note: The 2012 edition of the AP Stylebook, which for the first time has a separate section on Fashion Guidelines and a Broadcast chapter, plus an expanded section on Social Media Guidelines, is now available in print and online formats.
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Highlights of the new edition:

• Fashion Guidelines includes 185 entries, from A-line to Giorgio Armani, bodysuit to pantsuit to zoot suit.
• Broadcast Guidelines provides a primer on differences in style and writing between print stories and radio and TV stories. It also includes 29 terms, from actuality and b-roll to voice track and voicer.
• The expanded version of the Social Media Guidelines serves as a how-to handbook on setting up accounts in social media services, and the proper use of social media for newsgathering and source-building, illustrated with practical examples from staffers. There are new entries on cloud, direct message and modified tweet.
• The complete text of The Associated Press Statement on News Values and Principles has been added.
• Separate conference affiliations for major college basketball and football were added to the Sports Guidelines, which was thoroughly updated.
• Among the new or updated entries are: Achilles tendon, ages, concentration camps, fracking, Hells Angels, hopefully, illegitimate, Islamist, Ku Klux Klan, PAC, peninsula, privacy, race, and in Sports Guidelines: Olympics.

All of this content is now available in your Stylebook Online subscription.