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Editor’s Note Special Edition: Style updates from the 2024 ACES conference

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Editors Note Conductor

Updates from the 2024 ACES conference

Welcome to a special edition of Editor’s Note!
 
I’ve recently returned from the 2024 ACES: The Society for Editing Conference in San Diego, where I spent four days brushing up on hot topics in the world of editing, meeting with and hearing updates from the editors of both the Associated Press and Chicago stylebooks, and generally geeking out with 650 fellow editors. Yes, this included attending the annual ACES Spelling Bee.
 
In this special edition, I want to share with you some of the style updates announced at ACES—some of which will affect University style—and other notable takeaways.

Chicago Manual of Style updates

Two women pose for a photo behind a table draped in red cloth with the Chicago Manual of Style logo on it.
I had the chance to meet Jenny Ringblom (left), Chicago’s associate marketing director.
The Chicago Manual of Style comes out with a new edition only every few years—the current edition came out in 2017—so the excitement was palpable when a few hundred editors gathered in a ballroom to hear the latest from Russell Harper, the principal reviser for CMOS and the editor for its online Q&A section.

Harper shared several changes to Chicago style that will become official when the 18th edition is released this fall. Once the new edition is out, these changes become University style as well. Here are some highlights:

“Headline style,” or “headline case,” will now be called “title case.” The reason for this, Harper said, was to avoid confusion: he pointed out that headlines written in AP style use sentence-style capitalization, but headlines in CMOS style often use title case, so that left confusion about what “headline style” actually meant.

In title case, prepositions of five or more letters are now capitalized—e.g., A Room with a View but All About Eve.

Capitalize the first word of a complete sentence following a colon (this announcement brought cheers in the room!). Currently CMOS’s guidance is to always lowercase the first word after a colon, regardless of whether what comes after constitutes a complete sentence or not. With this update, the first word after a colon should be capitalized if it begins a complete sentence.

The Chicago Manual is fully embracing the use of singular they in formal writing.
 
For additional information about these changes and others, visit the CMOS Shop Talk blog. Once more information about these changes is available closer to the release date, I’ll share those updates in this newsletter.
 

Associated Press Stylebook updates

Two women sit behind a table draped in a block cloth with the Associated Press logo on it.
Colleen Newvine, left, and Paula Froke, the AP Stylebook editors, happily answered any questions about style during the conference.
The two editors of the Associated Press Stylebook, Paula Froke and Colleen Newvine, come to the ACES conference every year to announce updates to the newest edition of the AP Stylebook (due out in May). This session, always the most popular one at the conference, often draws cheers, gasps, or grumbles from the attendees.

Although the AP Stylebook is not the foundation for the University Style Guide, it’s still an excellent resource for any writer or editor. The AP style team does an outstanding job of staying on top of language changes, technology, and best practices, often teaming up with AP journalists and editors to consult experts in relevant fields. All of their research and carefully considered perspectives are put into the stylebook.
 
This year, one update in particular led to cheers and applause from the editors in attendance: beginning May 29, the AP will switch its primary dictionary from Webster’s New World College Dictionary to Merriam-Webster (online at m-w.com). Merriam-Webster is one of the last remaining robust, regularly updated dictionaries (compare that to Webster’s New World, which has not been updated since 2018). This change will tie the AP to a more current and appropriate resource. (For more information on primary dictionaries, check out the November 2023 Editor’s Note.)

One announced update did get some grumbles in the room: the AP editors have accepted that unique can take modifiers, such as very unique, in certain contexts. For any readers currently muttering at your screen, rest assured—this change is voluntary.

Froke and Newvine announced several other updates, including new guidance on terms including climate change and climate crisis, obese/overweight, and Indigenous peoples; a new section on best practices in digital journalism; and a change to how bulleted lists are punctuated. For a full rundown, visit the ACES blog.

Other hot topics

Several topics were widely discussed in sessions and during social events:
  • The role of artificial intelligence in editing and writing.
    AI was the hottest topic during this conference, generating conversations on everything from the ethics of using AI to how to use AI tools to help writers who aren’t native English speakers. The consensus was that most editors are interested in using AI tools, but not many people know where to start.
  • Editing for diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
  • Using plain language.
  • The writer-editor relationship.
Thank you for reading this special edition of Editor’s Note! Look for the next regularly scheduled issue in your inbox on April 25.
 

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