1. Run spell check.

2. Put news in lead. 

3. Spell people's names correctly.

4. "All periods and commas go inside all quote marks," Zurek said. "Period. End of discussion."

5. "Put attribution early in the quote," Zurek said, "certainly no later than the end of first sentence."

6. Every new speaker, a new paragraph.

7. Just use "said" in attribution, not more fancy words.

8. Numbers: one to nine, then 10, 11 and so on, except always figures in headlines. When numbers start a sentence, spell them out.

9. Appositional phrases, phrases that explain, take two commas. "The AP Stylebook,"the bible of journalists, says this.

10. Don't mix up 

• it's / its 
• there / they're / their 
• your / you're
• then / than

11. Spell out percent, not %, except in headlines. 

12. Spell out days of week.

13. Abbreviate Aug. through Feb. when used with the date.  Saturday, Feb. 5, but Saturdays in February.

14. Comma in a series: no comma before the conjunction. The flag is red, white and blue.

15. Titles before names are capitalized, job descriptions and titles after names are lower case. Ex. President Obama. Barack Obama, president of the United States. 

16. Effect is usually a noun, affect usually a verb.

17. "Backwards write don't," said Zurek. It's Zurek said, not said Zurek.

18. Composition titles, books (except the Bible)  and CDs go in quotes.  Newspapers & magazines don't.

19. Spelling: Bruckmann Chapel, Iadarola, Widener

20. When two words are put together to make a single-concept adjective before a noun, hyphenate them.  "A small-business man could be a huge fellow who runs a mom-and-pop enterprise, but a small businessman is always a runt," William Safire wrote.

21. Don't separate two complete sentences with a comma. Use a period. This mistake is called a comma splice.