I was wondering how you are supposed to use commas after full dates in AP style.
I've been told to always put a comma after the year, like in the sentence:
On April 4th, 2012, I found a cat.
However, I thought the following might be an exception:
April 4th, 2012 brought the death of my cat.
Notice how there's no comma after "2012." My teacher disagreed and told me that the AP style dictates that we always put commas after dates like that.
The way I reasoned through it is by replacing the dates with the word "Monday"
On Monday, I found a cat.
Monday brought the death of my cat.
And you wouldn't write
Monday, brought the death of my cat.
TL;DR
Which one is correct?
April 4th, 2012 brought the death of my cat.
or
April 4th, 2012, brought the death of my cat.
Best Answer
Unless your instructor can cite chapter and verse of the AP Stylebook, consider it a rumor. Anyone who can claim total knowledge of a 400 page document with 200+ changes in the last year alone is probably lying or at best mistaken.
Your reasoning is sound, but I don't have access to the latest Stylebook.