Knowing when to use initial caps is an extensive topic, so let’s focus on just three guidelines.
Standing Firm
The first guideline pertains to your personal “style guide.” When in doubt about capitalization, do you play it safe by going uppercase, or do you figure not being sure means lowercase is probably the way to go? I guess I gave away my attitude in the title––that writing looks smoother and more sophisticated without needless capitalization. Most reasons to use capital letters for correctness are obvious (Statue of Liberty, Saginaw, Susan), so I recommend that our personal style guides point us toward lowercase in areas that seem gray.
Case in point: I need to rush to the Post Office to send my materials Special Delivery. Yes, we’re excited and under pressure, and those four words may seem important at the moment, but is that any reason to stray from basic rules? No. Just as using exclamation points willy-nilly can make writing appear unsophisticated, overusing capital letters has a similar effect.
Note, however, that we would need caps in this sentence: You can get a passport photo taken at the Millard Fillmore Post Office. Here, we are using the official name of a specific post office. This distinction is akin to referring to a department at work formally or informally: He has headed the Human Resources Department for six years. (Correct.) She worked in human resources for six years before joining the circus. (Correct.)
So how many words are promiscuously capitalized in this sentence? I used the Suggestion Box to submit my ideas on Flexible Hours. Right! Four.
Handling Job Titles
Job titles are capitalized far too often , but, fortunately, that’ll never get us in trouble. Nevertheless, you are reading this to know the rule, so here you go. Strictly speaking, titles should receive initial caps only when they directly precede names, but many businesses and organizations do not follow this rule. You need to know the culture of your workplace.
We invited President Chloe Tyler to open the meeting. (Always correct.)
Send your nominations to Chloe Tyler, president of our firm. (Correct, but maybe not the style in your workplace. In that case, go with President.)
Simplifying the Subject Line
Because the rules of capitalization are tricky, I offer a third tip: Don’t treat the subject line of an email as if it were a title of a book or article. Doing so only makes us more prone to capitalization errors.
Consider this subject line: Employees who can Attend the Friday Luncheon. Hmm. If this were the title of a book, it would also use initial caps for “Who” (pronoun) and “Can”(verb). So why burden ourselves with looking up punctuation rules to get the subject line right? Just capitalize the first word and any word like “Friday” that always has an initial cap, leaving us with Employees who can attend the Friday luncheon.
A few other pointers about using initial caps, such as “North” vs. “north,” are in my book.
In addition to presenting workshops on writing in the workplace, Norm Friedman is a writer, editor, and writing coach. His 100+ Instant Writing Tips is a brief “non-textbook” to help individuals overcome common writing errors and write with more finesse and impact. Learn more at http://www.normfriedman.com/index.shtml.