capitalization

Examples of capitalization in the following topics:

• Capital Letters

  • Directly quoted speech is capitalized if it is a full sentence.
  • Proper nouns should always be capitalized.
  • A name or nickname should always be capitalized.
  • Names referring to a person’s culture should be capitalized.
  • Languages are also capitalized.

• Overall Structure and Formatting of a Chicago/Turabian Paper

  • In most cases, the first word after a colon should not be capitalized:
  • However, if what follows a colon is a series of multiple sentences, or a quotation, you do need to capitalize the first word after the colon:
  • If you have a colon in the middle of a sentence, and what follows after is a quotation or multiple sentences, the first word after the colon should be capitalized.

• Chicago/Turabian: Headings

  • If a heading is said to be in title case, that means you should format it as though it were the title of a book, with the first letters of most major words capitalized (e.g., A Study of Color-Blindness in Dogs).
  • If a heading is said to be in sentence case, that means you should format it as though it were a normal sentence, with only the first letter of the first word (and of any proper nouns) capitalized (e.g., A study of color-blindness in dogs).

• Abbreviations and Acronyms

  • Abbreviations should be capitalized just like their expanded forms would be.
  • If the original word or phrase is capitalized, then you should capitalize the abbreviation.
  • Note that it is not capitalized.)
  • (CIA is always capitalized because Central Intelligence Agency is always capitalized.)

• APA: Series and Lists

  • Do not capitalize the first letter of each element (e.g., do not write: (a) The brownie; (b) The cupcake, wrapper and all; and (c) The bowl of ice cream.)
  • However, the same rules of capitalization and of using commas or semicolons to separate the elements apply.
  • If this is the case, each element should end with a period, rather than a comma or semicolon, and should begin with a capital letter.

• APA: The References Section

  • You should present the author information in the following order and format: the author's last name (capitalized), a comma, the author's first initial, then a period, and finally their middle initial and period (if given):
  • Include the title of the journal in italicized title case (all major words capitalized, as in the title of a book), followed by a comma:
  • In the guidelines for citing different types of sources in APA style, you will notice several different patterns in capitalizing source titles.
  • —should be written in italicized title case (every major word capitalized).
  • (Recall that sentence means that just the first word and proper nouns are capitalized, as well as the first word after a colon, if there are any).

• APA: Headings

  • If a heading is said to be in title case, that means you should format it as though it were the title of a book, with the first letters of most major words capitalized (e.g., A Study of Color-Blindness in Dogs).
  • If a heading is said to be in sentence case, that means you should format it as though it were a normal sentence, with only the first letter of the first word (and of any proper nouns) capitalized (e.g., A study of color-blindness in dogs).

• Overall Structure and Formatting of an APA Paper

  • ., it could be a sentence on its own), the word after the colon or em dash should be capitalized (as though the following sentence were on its own).
  • Therefore, we capitalize its first word following the colon.
  • Here, "the train conductor" cannot stand as its own sentence, so its first word following the colon is not capitalized.

• Chicago/Turabian: Title Page

  • a third of the way down the page, the title of your paper in all capital letters;

• Semicolons

  • In some style guides, such as APA, however, the first word of the joined independent clause should be capitalized.