AP Style for cadets?

[Orville_third]

Here's a question for the more senior PAOs. What is proper AP style for cadet ranks? Is it the same as AP style for USAF ranks with "Cadet" added?

[lordmonar]

Spelled out... it would be Cadet Airman....Cadet Captain...etc.

Abbreviated it is C/Amn, C/Capt, etc.

For some external communications you can just lump them all together as Cadet.

YMMV.

[Pylon]

AP Style would not accept our internal abbreviations.  The closest reference you have is the entry under "military academies", which states that when referring to cadets in the Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and U.S. Military Academies, you leave off all of their internal cadet-structure ranks and simply use "Cadet" on first reference, and last name only thereafter.

[Nick]

AP Style would not accept our internal abbreviations.  The closest reference you have is the entry under "military academies", which states that when referring to cadets in the Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and U.S. Military Academies, you leave off all of their internal cadet-structure ranks and simply use "Cadet" on first reference, and last name only thereafter.

I was originally going to say spell out the full rank on first reference and "Cadet" on subsequent references, but that would probably work better.

[Pylon]

AP Style would not accept our internal abbreviations.  The closest reference you have is the entry under "military academies", which states that when referring to cadets in the Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and U.S. Military Academies, you leave off all of their internal cadet-structure ranks and simply use "Cadet" on first reference, and last name only thereafter.

I was originally going to say spell out the full rank on first reference and "Cadet" on subsequent references, but that would probably work better.

Well, the question was to AP Style.  There's really only one way to do things AP style most of the time.  That doesn't mean, however, that many companies and organizations have certain "internal style guides" which specify additional or different ways of doing things.

For example, our BU style guide specifies that all the proper names of the colleges and divisions within the university use an ampersand instead of "and" spelled out.  Since it's a proper noun, it jives with AP style, but is more restrictive and specific to us.   Since CAP has no internal style guide (nor would I trust most in the organization to put out a professional, proper one), I'd say just approximate the closet you can to the official AP Style Guide instead of making our own variations.  But that's just my opinion.

[RiverAux]

Personally, I think it makes more sense to just use "cadet" UNLESS the story is specifically about that cadet, especially if it involves a promotion.  In that case the general public is going to have a better chance of understanding the significance of the accomplishment - "Cadet Smith was presented with the Spaatz Award", vs "Cadet Smith was promoted to the rank of Cadet Colonel".  Even if we explain the Spaatz Award it still won't get the point across. 

[Pylon]

Personally, I think it makes more sense to just use "cadet" UNLESS the story is specifically about that cadet, especially if it involves a promotion.  In that case the general public is going to have a better chance of understanding the significance of the accomplishment - "Cadet Smith was presented with the Spaatz Award", vs "Cadet Smith was promoted to the rank of Cadet Colonel".  Even if we explain the Spaatz Award it still won't get the point across.

The entry in the AP style guide is speaking to the use of titles.  Titles come before the name.   In the example: "Capt. John Doe, Cadet Jane Smith" – those are titles. 

However, you could say "Cadet John Doe was promoted to the grade of cadet captain in a ceremony on Tuesday..."   Use in a sentence of specifics does not constitute a title and therefore would neither be abbreviated, nor subject to the rules of AP Style on military titles.  Also note the use of lower case when the rank or grade is contained within the sentence, which is correct.  That use would be in full compliance with AP style.