Exercises in Grammar, Usage
and Associated Press Style

This site offers around 1,650 free, self-instructional exercises for journalists, writers, students and others who want to review (or learn) journalistic language, as governed by the Associated Press Stylebook.

If you are using Internet Explorer 7 and having trouble seeing the questions in the quizzes, read this.

Newsroom Exercises (about 660 items) The Newsroom exercises were developed by Ron Hartung from the kinds of errors made by journalists and interns working at a daily newspaper. Set 1 Newsroom 1 - 10 Set 2 Newsroom 11 - 20 Set 3 Newsroom 21 - 30 Set 4 Newsroom 31 - 40 Set 5 Newsroom 41 - 50 Set 6 Newsroom 51 - 65 Newsroom-All Random selection from all exercises The Review Exercises All of them Experimental Exercises     Recent corrections Some recent updates to the AP Stylebook.	Grammar and Style Exercises Developed by Gerald Grow for his journalism students. AP Stylebook exercises chapter by chapter (about 450 items) Confusable Words exercises (about 170 items) Grammar Review exercises (about 310 items) Practice on Specific Topics Hyphens (64 items) Nouns (24 items) Possessives (30 items) Pronouns (34 items -- for him and me, his or her vs. their, etc.) Spelling (64 items) Subject-Verb (20 items each time, randomly selected from a bank of about 120 items) Word Usage (fewer/less, homed/honed, pored/poured, etc. 20 items each time, randomly selected from a bank of about 200 items) Dropped Word Endings (44 items -- use(d) to, suppose(d) to, etc. Nearly all these examples come from student work.) Learning Lay and Lie, by Gerald Grow New! Choose the Right Expression (49 items). Avoid errors in common expressions and cliches, by Gerald Grow
Additional Resources Online Exercises from ACES, the American Copy Editor Society. Tips on writing, editing, AP style, etc., from ACES. "When Journalism Students Don't Know Grammar," by Gerald Grow, article in Insights, the journal of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, Spring 2006.	A Grammarian's Idea of Fun A few cartoons The World's Easiest Quiz Some Grammar Demons in "Single Choice Quiz" format. (You'll get them all correct!) Single-Choice Quiz No. 1 Single-Choice Quiz No. 2 If Bureaucrats Wrote Ads--a humorous look at wordiness and inflated language. How to Write Badly -- So you'll know how to write badly well. Redundicide Spray -- A humorous visual aid for teachers, editors and writers on reducing redundancy. Self-Direction Spray -- A humorous visual aid for teaching self-direction.

For Teachers: Recommendations on how to use this site with your students.

Introduction These free, self-instructional exercises are based on issues of grammar, usage and AP style that arose at a daily newspaper and in a course in journalism. They are offered here for journalists, professional writers, college students, high school students, and others who are learning or reviewing journalistic language. Teachers are invited to assign students to practice these exercises, but there is no provision for a teacher to track student performance. Please note: Many of the exercises apply to English in general, but some of them apply only to journalistic language as governed by The Associated Press Stylebook and may differ from standard English usage. When an explanation refers to "the official dictionary," that is Webster's New World College Dictionary, the AP's first reference for anything not covered in the Stylebook itself. AP style changes from time to time. If you are already familiar with AP style, here are Some Recent Updates to the AP Stylebook that you may want to review. There is some repetition in the topics covered. This is partly due to the way these exercises were developed, in pieces, over several years, in response to the writing problems of journalism students, interns, and journalists. It is also due in part to the fact that certain grammatical issues keep recurring, and we want to make sure they are well covered. A Few Things You Need to Know (1) Pop-ups. For the exercises to work, you must set your browser to allow pop-ups from the newsroom101.com site. This should be simple. See your browser's help file for instructions. If you are using Google Toolbar, you may need to click on the Toolbar's pop-up icon for instructions. (2) Correct Answers. To see the feedback and to receive your correct score, be sure to click the correct answser to each question, even if you have to try more than once. When an exercise contains useful feedback, it is usually delivered when you click the correct answer. (3) The Grammar Habit. Grammar, usage, and AP style are not so much knowledge as they are skills. They are habits. You need to be able to use them confidently, correctly, without thinking -- the way you know how to walk or tie your shoes. The only way you can gain this level of skill is through practice. Practice! Practice! Practice! These exercises are designed to provide you with practice. Of course you will continue to look things up. Of course you will continue to pause and think about things like "lay" and "lie." But make your goal, as much as you can, to make grammar, usage, and AP style automatic. Make them a habit. A good habit. News: DDOS Attack on Grammar Site Newsroom 101 was intermittently shut down between Sept. 22 and Sept. 24, 2006, due to what the internet service provider diagnosed as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. It is astonishing how far some people will go to suppress the free discussion of such subversive topics as subject-verb agreement.

News: Two-thirds of SAT Writing Score based on Multiple-Choice According to a New York Times article by Tamar Lewin on Sept. 3, 2006, two-thirds of the writing score on the SAT comes from multiple-choice questions on grammar and usage.

Instructions Each practice exercise below consists of about 10 multiple-choice questions. Many give feedback that helps explain the correct answer. Take these quiz-like exercises to practice the materials, then review groups of these exercises by taking the Review Exercises linked below. How to practice: Practice each set until you can earn at least a 90% on it every time. Use the review quizzes every five sets to test your learning. Set out to notice, learn and remember each point of grammar or style. Don't perform these exercises on automatic, in a perfunctory manner or while you are surrounded by distractions. Focus. Imagine you are learning to juggle with knives. Grammar is sharp and slightly dangerous; it can hurt you if you don't handle it right. Recommended Browser: Firefox was used in the development and testing of this site. Firefox can be downloaded free from Mozilla.org. Set browser preferences to allow pop-ups from Newsroom101.Com. See the Help file in your browser for instructions. Short Instructions Make up a unique name to log in with. Use it for every quiz and for the survey. (Don't use a name that sounds like a spam message. That will cause your results to be rejected.) Every 5 quizzes, take the corresponding Review Quiz. If this site helps you, send a small contribution (see the bottom of the page) Enjoy! Longer Instructions Help page About this site

Disclaimer

This site is not affiliated with the Associated Press or with the publishers of the AP Stylebook, and they are not responsible for its contents.

Credits

The examples and answers in the Newsroom exercises came from Ron Hartung of the Tallahassee Democrat -- grammar consultant, newsroom coach, intern mentor and author of the weekly "Traffic Doctor"column.

With his cooperation, Ron's exercises were edited and put online by Gerald Grow -- professor of journalism at Florida A&M University and internationally unrecognized cartoonist -- who added new units of material he developed for his journalism classes.

Please report any errors in the quizzes or problems with the quiz software. But before you report that the quizzes do not appear, make sure you have set your browser to accept pop-ups from this site! Then try the quizzes again.