19.2 Using Capital Letters

With the advent of new social networking structures, such as text messaging, IM (instant messaging), and Facebook, the reliance on traditional standard capital letters has been relaxed in informal settings. This laxity got its start as a means of expediency since the use of capital letters required additional efforts for people using only a couple of fingers or thumbs for typing words. Rather quickly, the use of abbreviations and lack of capital letters became fashionable—almost like a status symbol indicating a person’s social networking awareness. Despite this now common exclusion of capital letters in personal situations, capital letters are still the proper choice in professional and academic settings. If you are someone who writes far more often on a cell phone than on a computer, you are likely to benefit from a brush up on capitalization rules for those occasions when you are composing more official documents.

Abbreviations

Capitalize abbreviations of proper nouns, such as the following:

• Schools: UNL, ISU, U of I
• Government agencies: USDA, CIA, FBI
• Countries and states: USA, NY, TX
• Organizations: BSA, AFS
• Corporations: IBM, AT&T
• Television and radio stations: NBC, CBS, WLS

Bulleted Items

If the items in a bulleted list are sentences, capitalize the first word of each item, as follows:

Semester exam schedule:

• Semester exams for M-W-F classes will be given on December 12.
• Semester exams for T-Th classes will be given on December 13.
• Semester exams for once-a-week classes will be given as arranged by the professor.

If the items are not sentences and are not continuations of a sentence stem, capitalize the first word of each item, as follows:

Semester exam schedule:

• Classes held on M-W-F: December 12
• Classes held on T-Th: December 13
• Classes held once-a-week: As arranged by instructor

If the items are continuations of a sentence stem, do not capitalize the first word unless it happens to be a proper noun.

Semester exams will be held on

• December 12 for M-W-F classes,
• December 13 for T-Th classes,
• a date arranged by the professors for once-a-week classes.

Common Misuse of Capital Letters

Avoid the unnecessary use of capital letters. As a rule, you can avoid capitalization errors by adhering to the rules for capitalization. But the following “don’t capitalize” suggestions can help you to avoid making some common mistakes.

• Capitalize names of holidays and months but not seasons:

  winter, spring, summer, fall

• Do not capitalize words such as “mom” and “dad” when they are used to talk about someone as opposed to when used as a name:

  Capitalize: “What did you say, Mom?”

  Don’t capitalize: “My mom and dad came with me.”

• Do not capitalize words that are often used as part of a name when they are used in other ways:

  “My family tree includes a general, a US president, and a princess.”

• Only capitalize direction words that designate a specific location:

  Capitalize: “I live out West.”

  Don’t capitalize: “I live west of Nebraska.”

• You can choose to capitalize a word for emphasis, but avoid overusing this technique since it will lessen the effect.
• Entire words and sentences written in capital letters are hard to read. Also, in online situations, this type of typing is referred to as shouting. So except in very rare situations, avoid typing in all capitals.