Writing tip: cut out those Capital Letters

What is it with CAPITAL LETTERS?

One of the most common errors that I have to correct a professional editor is Overuse of Capital Letters. I see a lot of Unnecessary Capitalization.

I have to wonder, why? What is it that drives writers—and by that I do not necessarily mean Professional or aspiring Professional Writers, but People who have to Write as Part of their Jobs—to put Capital Letters with an apparent if inconsistent Sense of acknowledging the Importance of Key Concepts.

Is this deference to an Idea more important than the writer, or Conceit that every Word the Writer puts on the Screen is Something to be Noted?

Or is this just because Microsoft Word so helpfully changes things that you did not need or want changed?

Examples:

• The Meeting of the Employee Picnic Committee will be held in the big Boardroom.
• The Board will deliberate the Members’ Programme. 
• The Regional Directors must approve each Manager’s Monthly Report.

Over-capitalization is Distracting, Annoying and Time-Consuming. It doesn’t make words, and even less, ideas, more important than lower-case letters do. If you want readers to take your words seriously, then you have to write them so that they understand their significance.

This is what I would like you, my readers, to try: avoid capital letters. Use capital or upper-case letters only when unavoidable. Limit them to:

• the beginnings of sentences  
• proper names of people, places or specific things
• titles when used immediately before a person’s name, as in President Obama.

What about headings?

Even in titles and subheadings, capital letters are not necessary for words other than the first and any proper names.

I remember the rules I learned in school: “Capitalize main words in headings and titles, such as nouns and verbs, but not prepositions or conjunctions or adjectives less than four letters long.”

What’s a major word? More to the point, what’s a minor word? What about a word like “that,” with exactly four letters? Both “That” and “that” look wrong in a headline.

Here’s my proposed solution: use the same rules for all your text. Capitalize words in headlines in the same way you would in “body copy”: if they’re proper names or the first word in a sentence.

Most major English-language newspapers and magazines today use “sentence case” for their headlines.

 

• Daily chart
  The sun never sets
  How Facebook connections mirror old empires
  The Economist online, March 19
• Sarkozy vows to find gunman in fatal Jewish school shooting
  The Globe and Mail, March 19
• Vaccines by skin may work better, study shows
  Boston Globe, March 19

Also, don’t capitalize every word in the headings of tables and graphs. Capital letters are not necessary here, they add nothing to the information, and they take up more space than their lower-case counterparts, where space is at a premium.

Most professional editors in the English language are now pushing for less use of capital letters, and it’s time writers got into this new habit. It will benefit you in two ways:

• It’s easier—there are fewer rules and exceptions to remember.
• You avoid errors by using the same rules and exceptions in all your writing, whether headings, sub-heads or body text.

Here’s another way to think about it: imagine that the Shift (or, if it’s a Macintosh computer, the shift) key is hot. Pressing it causes a little pain. You don’t want to push down on that key any more than you absolutely have to, do you?

Words to capitalize

• Proper names of people: Maggie Deng, Wasylko Bukowski 
• Places: Ougadougou, the South China Sea 
• Particular things that have proper names: The Roman Catholic Church, the Rotary Club, Scouts Canada
• Titles when they come immediately before or following a name: Prime Minister David Cameron; Nathalie Delormier, Director of Marketing 
• Particular sporting events and trophies: the Stanley Cup, the World Cup.

Do not capitalize

• generic geographical terms: the city; eastern Spain; the north branch of the river  
• job functions: coordinator of coffee 
• plural titles: “These copies are for the members of Parliament.”
  “Both ministers will be available to answer questions.” 
•  non-specific legal terms: “Parliament debated a new crime act.”

There is one other area where capitalization rules require some explanation: lists. I’ll deal with that in my next writing tip.

In the meantime, if you want a comprehensive guide to using capital letters, I’d suggest you invest in a style guide. There are a lot around. Pick one, follow it and check it frequently to make sure you’re staying true to the rules you’ve chosen.