I'm sometimes have brain freeze when doing my title caps. Is there a guideline for it?
Here's a sample.
PayPal: What is it and Why Should your Business Use it?
is this done correctly or not?
Title Caps
Moderators: Celeste Stewart, Ed, Constant
Re: Title Caps
OK, I totally cheat on capitalizing titles by going to the Submit Article page and entering the title into the "Title" field and making sure "Auto-Capitalize" is checked. Click on any other field and it's automatically capitalized.
For your title, it spit back: PayPal: What Is It and Why Should Your Business Use It?
If cheating works, you don't need to know the rules, right? Well, in general you're safe if you capitalize everything but coordinating conjunctions, articles, and prepositions (little, unimportant words). Take a look at a style guide and stick to its advice and you'll be fine.
For your title, it spit back: PayPal: What Is It and Why Should Your Business Use It?
If cheating works, you don't need to know the rules, right? Well, in general you're safe if you capitalize everything but coordinating conjunctions, articles, and prepositions (little, unimportant words). Take a look at a style guide and stick to its advice and you'll be fine.
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jadedragon
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Re: Title Caps
If you are going to use the submission form to cheat than be sure you modify the document to match. Just saying. 
Re: Title Caps
Rules can vary depending on which style book is being used.
AP STYLEBOOK (journalists) http://www.apstylebook.com/,
Chicago Manual of Style http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html and
Modern Language Assoc. or MLA http://www.mla.org/style_faq1(latter two for academic works).
The OWL at Purdue is a wonderful site; easier to follow than most. It has a special section for Professional Writers in Business: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/681/01/
It's important to note that internet writing is changing things. Shortcuts and simplicity are shifting some rules. Several are shared in writing guidelines and in forums.
But basic rules for titles and captions:
Do Capitalize:
FIRST and LAST words in a title or caption.
ALL IMPORTANT words.
NOUNS, PRONOUNS, VERBS, ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES and
SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (e.g. That, Because, As)
Don't Capitalize:
COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (e.g. and, but, or)
ARTICLES (e.g. a, the, an)
PREPOSTIONS less than FIVE LETTERS (e.g. of, to, from, at)
SMALL words (e.g. do and the ones above. N.B. Many will capitalize "Do."
The US Gov't Printing Office Style Manual states:
"Capitalize all words in titles of publications and documents, except 'a, an, the, at, by, for, in, of, on, to, up, and, as, but, it, or, and nor'."
In your first PayPal example, the last word, "It" should be capitalized.
Hope this helps.
AP STYLEBOOK (journalists) http://www.apstylebook.com/,
Chicago Manual of Style http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html and
Modern Language Assoc. or MLA http://www.mla.org/style_faq1(latter two for academic works).
The OWL at Purdue is a wonderful site; easier to follow than most. It has a special section for Professional Writers in Business: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/681/01/
It's important to note that internet writing is changing things. Shortcuts and simplicity are shifting some rules. Several are shared in writing guidelines and in forums.
But basic rules for titles and captions:
Do Capitalize:
FIRST and LAST words in a title or caption.
ALL IMPORTANT words.
NOUNS, PRONOUNS, VERBS, ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES and
SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (e.g. That, Because, As)
Don't Capitalize:
COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (e.g. and, but, or)
ARTICLES (e.g. a, the, an)
PREPOSTIONS less than FIVE LETTERS (e.g. of, to, from, at)
SMALL words (e.g. do and the ones above. N.B. Many will capitalize "Do."
The US Gov't Printing Office Style Manual states:
"Capitalize all words in titles of publications and documents, except 'a, an, the, at, by, for, in, of, on, to, up, and, as, but, it, or, and nor'."
In your first PayPal example, the last word, "It" should be capitalized.
Hope this helps.
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KinsleyRoyale
- Posts: 82
- Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:23 pm
Re: Title Caps
I wasn't sure how the auto cap thing worked. Thanks for the tip.