Workforce Support

Title Case

When composing titles or headings that mandate the use of title case, use the following guidelines: 

1. Capitalize all nouns, adverbs, pronouns, adjectives and verbs.

• Example: am, is, are, was, were, be, etc.
• Do NOT use contractions.

2. Capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.
3. Capitalize all words when they are the first and last words in a title.
4. Do not capitalize articles or coordinating conjunctions (a, an, the, and, but, for).

5. In hyphenated words, follow the same rules of capitalization for the word following the hyphen as you would for the word before it.

• Correct: Next-Generation Solutions

• Incorrect: Next-generation Solutions

6. Follow the spelling and capitalization preferred by the company, but capitalize the first letter if it begins a sentence or title.

• Examples: eBay, iTunes; EBay, ITunes when starting a sentence or title.

Correct: Going Into Business With a Partner

Incorrect: Going into Business with a Partner

Correct: Using iTunes to Build Your Music Library
Incorrect: Using ITunes to Build Your Music Library

Sentence Case

Rule: When composing titles, headings or subheadings that require sentence case, capitalize only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any subsequent proper nouns. Omit end punctuation marks.

• Correct: No-mess ways of keeping out rodents
  
• Incorrect: No-mess Ways of Keeping out Rodents.
  

Directions and Regions

Rule: Compass points  are generally lowercase unless they are used as part of a proper noun or to describe an entire region.

• Correct: No one on the West Coast eats bacon, but he’s from the South.
  
• Incorrect: Munchkin farmers raised aerial pigs in the Western portion of Kansas.
  

Examples of Common Usages

 

Compass directions: The historic storm moved west across the region. They traveled east.

 

Regions: The Western states, the East Coast, the Northeast, Southern recipes, most settlers in the area were Northerners, Southeast Asia, South Pacific

 

With nations (general): northern United States, western Canada, eastern Australia

 

With nations (as proper name or politically divided country): North Korea, Northern Ireland

 

With states and cities (directional/area descriptions): northern Illinois, southern Milwaukee

 

With states and cities (widely known sections/proper names): Lower East Side of New York, Southern California, the South Side of Chicago, West Texas, South Dakota, West Virginia

 

Forming proper names (region/location): North Woods, North Pole, Far East, Middle East, West Coast (entire region), Eastern Shore, Northern Hemisphere

Cocktail Drinks and Wines

Rule: Generally, keep the names of all cocktail drinks lowercase. Capitalize wines named for regions, and use lowercase for wines named for varietals. 

Exceptions: Scotch whisky and similar constructions where the drink relies on a proper noun for its meaning. 

• Correct: The bloody mary, margarita and old fashioned are popular drinks, so keep your bar well-stocked with the necessary ingredients for your next get-together.

• Incorrect: Know the difference between a Dry Martini, Dirty Martini and Sweet Martini to accommodate all your martini-drinking guests. 

Special circumstances for specific spellings:

• Scotch whisky: A particular type of whiskey made in Scotland distilled from malted barley dried over a peat fire. Lowercase scotch and use the spelling whiskey in all other instances.

• Jamaica rum: not Jamaican rum

Cocktail names that are capitalized: Bellini, Irish coffee, Manhattan cocktail

Wine names that are capitalized: Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Chianti, Madeira, Marsala

When in doubt, please use http://www.yourdictionary.com for clarification on capitalization of cocktail drinks and wines. 

Military Titles

Rule: Military ranks are not capitalized unless they are used directly in front of a name.  

• Correct: In July 2008, Ann Dunwoody became the first female four-star general in the history of the U.S. Army. 

• Incorrect: As part of their duties, Command Sergeant Majors in the Army are generally responsible for the appearance, conduct, performance and training of 3,000 to 5,000 enlisted personnel. 

Rule: When used in front of a name, most military ranks are capitalized and abbreviated.

• Correct: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is Gen. John Jones. 

• Incorrect: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is general John Jones.

• See a list of correct title capitalization and abbreviations for military ranks here: http://apstylebook.blogspot.com/search/label/military%20titles

Rule: Military ratings/military occupational specialties (MOS) are different than ranks, and they require lowercase in all circumstances; do NOT capitalize them even when they precede a name.

• Correct: Aircraft electrician, cavalry scout, chemical operations specialist and combat engineer are job options in the Army.

• Incorrect: Wire Chief, Field Radio Operator and Data Network Specialist are Marine jobs that fall under the communications occupational field.