CJ Tips: Editors' Pet Peeves, Part 2, The Right Way to Capitalize

Welcome back to the second installment of what frustrates editors. Today I'll talk about capitalization and when and where to use caps in your articles. It can be a tricky issue, because many people think the word "president" should actually be spelled "President" for example. And bad capitalizing can make your post look amateurish, so memorize these tips below to give your articles the professional polish they deserve. • Use upper case for ranks and titles when associated with a name, as in President George W. Bush or Queen Elizabeth. But use the lower case when the rank stands alone as, "The president said he would..." Some titles serve as names, and so they have initial capitals, as in these examples: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Shah of Iran. If you want to describe the position as opposed to the individual, use lower case: "The next shah of Iran is purported to be..." • Organization, ministries, departments, treaties and acts get the upper case treatment. So would write United Nations, the Scottish Parliament, the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, and so on. But use lower case for general descriptions, such as the French parliament, the American health department. • Political parties usually deserve upper cases, including the word "party." So you'd write Republican Party, Green Party, the New Democratic Party and so on. But if you are writing about liberals and conservatives in general, use lower case. • Of course, capitalize place names such as Sweden, Austin, the Hague, etc. You also capitalize vague geographic areas such as the Middle East, East Asia, the West, Central America, and so forth. Lower case when writing about east, west, north or south, unless it's part of a place name (South Korea, North Pole). But when a region is part of a collective of sorts, use capitals, as in the South (in the U.S.). • The Web has given birth to many new expressions. Some of them may confuse writers who aren't certain if they should be capitalized. There are many variations but at DigitalJournal.com here's what we do: capitalize Web but lowercase website; lowercase email, laptop, online, cyberwars, podcast, browser, e-commerce. We capitalize World Wide Web, Internet, Twitter, Flash, Java, Digital Millenium Copyright Act. • What other terms do you capitalize? Here is a sampling: anti-Semitism, the Davis Cup, Hispanics, Labour Day, Koran, New Year's Day, the Queen's Speech, Stealth fighter. • And what do you lower case? Check out these words: aborigines, common market, draconian, government, Kyoto protocol, french windows, the right, third world, the press.