It is ebay or eBay or Ebay? How Technical Writers use capitalization in user guides creates many problems for editors, reviewers, and users. Part of the problem is a lack of guidelines and style guides. What you think looks fine break some style guide rule you were unaware of.
The Capitalization of Microsoft
A good example is the word Microsoft. When it started out, it was MicroSoft. Then it changed the uppercase S to a lowercase.
So, what do you do with all the legacy documents or international materials, for example, business documents for Chinese readers?
Guidelines for Capitalization
In general, use capitalization rules whenever possible – for example, common nouns are usually all lowercase and proper nouns are always capitalized.
- Never use all uppercase letters for emphasis.
- Follow the capitalization rules of software as necessary, as in case-sensitive keywords.
- Do not capitalize the spelled-out form of an acronym unless specified otherwise in the List of Acronyms and Abbreviations.
- Avoid over-capitalization.
Capitalization Of User Interfaces Elements
Microsoft recommends the following capitalization rules for interface elements:
- Menu names, command and command button names, and dialog box titles and tab names: Follow the interface. Usually, these items use title caps. If the interface is inconsistent, use title caps.
- Dialog box elements: Follow the interface. Newer style calls for these items to use sentence caps. If the interface is inconsistent, use sentence caps.
- Functional elements: Capitalize the names of functional elements that do not have a label in the interface, such as toolbars (the Standard toolbar) and toolbar buttons (the Insert Table button).
- Do not capitalize interface elements used generically, such as toolbar, menu, scroll bar, and icon.
- The Golden Rules of Capitalization in Technical Documents Do not capitalize unless it is case-sensitive.
Looking for examples
One of the hazards of having a love of words is that you see things that others take for granted.
So, when it comes to caps or should that be capitalizations… I see these everywhere.
For example:
Is it web site or Web Site or Website?
Is it the Bible of The Bible?
Is it IBM or I.B.M.?
What other examples would you add?
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Sentence case is far more readable and modern to my eye – the problem is it requires some thought, so people resort to initial caps as a safer choice. When I was editing release notes I was forever taking out capital letters from Proper Nouns that weren’t, e.g. a Sales Order’s just a sales order really.
Internet’s an interesting one – used to be Internet now it’s just internet.
Then it starts to get complicated when (at least here in Australia) the rule is to use capital letters for the incumbent (Prime Minister Julia Gillard) and lower case for previous incumbents (former prime minister Kevin Rudd).
As for IBM, how does IBM write its name? So in Australia where we prefer ‘organisation’, we always write ‘United Nations Organization’ because that’s how that organisation writes its name.
No wonder editors are so important to good writing.
Use to be website, then Web Site, now it’s Web site.
Wonder who has the final word on this?
Crazy isn’t it?
Hi Steve,
I think people do it to prioritize the noun or what they think is a Proper Noun, which is another story
I try to help the developers, as one example, by giving them a 1 page cheat sheet with examples of Do’s and Don’t’s.
Not everyone gets ‘it’ or wants to…
Of course, if developers could write perfect text, we’d probably have to learn to code
That’s interesting.
Why does the former PM get lower case?
I’d have thought that PM would be capped regardless of status. Is this an Aussie thing?
As for IBM, how does IBM write its name?
It depends… on corp brochures it often spells it as I.B.M. with the periods.
On the website, it’s IBM as in the logo which seems more practical.
FWIW when I worked there we had a quiz to see how many employees knew what IBM stood for.
The answers were not what we’d hoped!
and almost no-one got BTO (Business Transformation Outsourcing)
sigh…
Current practise here in the UK is to lower case job titles – BBC website for one and many national newspapers and journals also. PM is just one of the bigger jobs you can have
From today’s beeb
A Downing Street spokesman said: “There is a huge literature on this issue and it’s something that the prime minister spoke about in opposition and it’s something this government says it is going to look at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11756049
Re: IBM – there’s no guarantee the copy writers have read the style guide. I referenced one company on our website who used 3 different presentations of their name internally, with and without InterCaps and spaces.
Current practise here in the UK is to lower case job titles – BBC website for one and many national newspapers and journals also. PM is just one of the bigger jobs you can have
From today’s beeb
A Downing Street spokesman said: “There is a huge literature on this issue and it’s something that the prime minister spoke about in opposition and it’s something this government says it is going to look at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11756049
Re: IBM – there’s no guarantee the copy writers have read the style guide. I referenced one company on our website who used 3 different presentations of their name internally, with and without InterCaps and spaces.
Current practise here in the UK is to lower case job titles – BBC website for one and many national newspapers and journals also. PM is just one of the bigger jobs you can have
From today’s beeb
A Downing Street spokesman said: “There is a huge literature on this issue and it’s something that the prime minister spoke about in opposition and it’s something this government says it is going to look at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11756049
Re: IBM – there’s no guarantee the copy writers have read the style guide. I referenced one company on our website who used 3 different presentations of their name internally, with and without InterCaps and spaces.
Hi Steve,
Really interesting about the PM or is that pm
It really does get difficult when you’re running projects across different time zones who have different writing ‘habits’.
Eg
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learnt
Which is right?
Rhetorical question, tbh.
Another way getting UK based-writers to use US English… they knew it was right as our customers wanted US English but old habits…
We develop a style guide for answer these questions. We begin by ranking existing style standards (e.g., our corporate style standards and branding standards), then our preferred reference style books (Associated Press Stylebook book first, then Chicago Manual of Style second for questions the AP doesn’t answer), then down to our division style standards. Those standards include terms specific to our division and industry niche. The division style standards integrate tech writing, marketing, media relations, and advertising style standards to ensure consistent usage across all media. It includes a tip sheet for product names and a tip sheet for common mistakes.
Hi Odhran,
That’s a great idea as it seems to cover most all areas. Can I ask what’s the page count?
We’re trying to do something similar but I’m concerned if it’s too long, others won’t use it.
Also, it is on the web or a hardcopy?
Thx
Ivan