Capital offence: the rules for using capital letters

Using capital letters correctly will improve the professionalism of your business writing.

Capital letters are often overused and used inconsistently. Other than looking unprofessional, incorrect capitalisation can decrease readability, which impacts communication and engagement. This overview will help you avoid committing any capital offences!

Always capitalise …

There are two fundamental rules about what to capitalise: 

1. Sentences should always begin with a capital letter.
2. Initial capitals should be used for proper nouns – the names of places, people and organisations.

Some examples

• Buildings and public places, e.g. Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne Town Hall
• Holidays and events, e.g. Labour Day, Small Business Festival Victoria
• Organisation and business names, e.g. Moreland Energy Foundation, Gauge Espresso
• Trademarks, brand and product names, e.g. Aeroplane Jelly, Beechworth Pale Ale
• Titles, e.g. Ms, Dr, Minister
• Legislation (also italicised), e.g. Copyright Act 1968
• Journals, newspapers and magazines (also italicised), e.g. The Age, Journal of Marketing Communications

Rarely capitalise ... 

Articles, prepositions and conjuctions (such as ‘a’, ‘and’, 'in', 'of' ‘or’, 'the') are only capitalised at the beginning of sentences, headings or titles. For example, 'the' is capitalised in newspaper title The Australian, but 'of' is not capitalised in National Gallery of Victoria.

Exceptions

Sometimes the normal rules of capitalisation are broken for stylistic reasons. A brand or product name may not have an initial capital, such as the iconic iPhone. Or capitals may be abandoned altogether, as is the preference of singer k.d. lang.

You choose ...

Further to these rules, you have a choice of capitalisation style for things like headings and book titles. Traditionally maximal capitalisation was the norm. Modern, minimalist style means limited capitalisation is now common.

In my opinion, minimal capitalisation looks cleaner and is more readable. However, if you prefer maximal capitalisation, then use it! The key is to be consistent with the style you choose. Ensure your preferred capitalisation style is added to your business’s writing style guide.

Examples using minimal capitalisation

• General titles and headings, e.g. What is content marketing?
• Book titles, periodicals, articles, web documents (also italicised), e.g. The vanishing act of Esme Lennox, All marketers are liars
• Song titles (also in quotation marks), e.g. ‘Dazed and confused’, ‘Boots of Spanish leather’
• Movies, television and radio programs, podcasts, e.g. Upper middle bogan, The bridge on the River Kwai

Examples using maximal capitalisation

• General titles and headings, e.g. What is Content Marketing?
• Book titles, periodicals, articles, web documents (also italicised), e.g. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, All Marketers are Liars
• Song titles (also in quotation marks), e.g. ‘Dazed and Confused’, ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’
• Movies, television and radio programs, podcasts, e.g. Upper Middle Bogan, The Bridge on the River Kwai

FULLY CAPITALISED HEADINGS

When formatting documents with multiple heading hierarchies, I would suggest ALL CAPS be used sparingly. This style may be required to differentiate between hierarchies, but be aware that readability is compromised when lengthy headings are formatted using all capitals. For shorter headings this isn’t such an issue.

More ...

For more grammar tips, see my blog posts on writing time and using dashes correctly.

If you need someone to finesse your business writing or you want a writing style guide developed for your business, get in touch with me!

Have you defined your brand personality?

Brand personality is attributing human characteristics to a brand.

Having a defined brand personality differentiates your business brand from other brands and helps you to stand out and break through the clutter. It will guide the way you express and portray your brand (how your brand speaks, behaves and looks), and ensure your brand is represented consistently. It will help the right people to connect with your brand, and increase brand awareness.

If your business doesn’t have a defined brand personality, it’s worth determining one. (And then reviewing your brand alignment and strategy against it!)

There are various brand personality models, however, I think for small businesses it’s satisfactory to select a set of keywords to describe the essence of your business personality. Three (max. four) are enough.

For example, an organic produce company might define its brand personality as honest, friendly and principled.

A high-end hair salon could describe its brand personality as glamorous, exclusive and professional.

You can use the extensive (but not exhaustive) list of keywords above to help define your business’s brand personality. Or use a thesaurus to help you come up with the right words. Nuances are important – happy, cheerful and exuberant mean similar things, but each word gives a different feeling (this is also important for your brand language and writing).

Once you have a brand personality defined, your visual identity and brand language and voice will flow from this. And you can get your branding on target.

A matter of time

I recently wrote about the correct way to write dates. Now it’s time to tackle times. However, times are a little trickier, as there are various acceptable ways to write them.

The key is to be consistent with the style you choose to ensure the professionalism of your business writing. Your preferred style of writing the time should be added to your business’s writing style guide.

The modern, visually clean way to write the time is presented in these examples:

9am
12.30pm

Capitals should be avoided (not 9AM or 12.30PM).
No full stops between ‘am’ and ‘pm’ (not 9a.m. or 12.30p.m.).
No colons (not 12:30pm).
Some people prefer a space after the numbers (9 am, 12.30 pm).

As you can see, I choose not to use two zeros to indicate even hours (e.g. 9.00am), unless in a particular situation it looks odd not include them, or impacts on readability or comprehension.

Time spans

To show a time span use an en dash:

7–11am
11am–3pm

To write times spans in prose:

We are open from 7am to 11am.
Lunch is available between 11am and 3pm.

24 hour time

Four digits are always used for 24 hour time. The first two for the hours, the last two for minutes. For example:

0900 hours (9am)
1230 hours (12.30pm)
2020 hours (8.20pm)

If you need help to hone your business writing, or to develop a writing style guide, contact me.

The right way to write dates

Yes, there is a correct way to write dates. A way that clearly communicates, is logical and visually clean. Writing the date in the correct way will add to the professionalism of your business writing. Be sure to add it to your business’s writing style guide.

The correct format is:

1 August 2017

No punctuation. No ‘st’. No ‘of’. It’s much more appealing than:

August 1, 2017 or

1st August, 2017

If you need to use the name of the day, a comma is used to separate it from the date:

Tuesday, 1 August 2017

The correct way to write dates in figures is:

1.8.2017 or
1.8.17

Using slashes is not technically correct, such as 1/8/2017. Slashes should be used to indicate things like alternatives (yes/no), abbreviations (a/c), fractions (1/3) and per (60km/h). Financial years are often written incorrectly using a slash, e.g. 2016/17. Instead it should be 2016–17, using a en dash.

If you need help to sharpen your business writing, or to develop a writing style guide for your business, get in touch with me.