I belong to a few groups on LinkedIn. This last week, I’ve been amazed to see group members pose questions written using initial capital letters. Here are a couple of examples, altered slightly to avoid too explicit finger-pointing:

What’s A Reasonable Hourly Rate For…..?

Best Service for Access to On Line Publications?

Not only are initial capitals incorrect within a sentence, they are not easy to read. And (not that there are correct places to write incorrectly), this was on LinkedIn, where a professional should want to appear at her or his best!

So let’s review the rules for capitalization.

Sentences

A question is a sentence, not a title. Just as a sentence begins with a capital letter, so does a question. Write all other words in lower case letters, unless there is a reason to capitalize any.

• What’s a reasonable hourly rate for…..?
• Best service for access to online publications?

Titles of Works

Titles, chapters and section headings are written with initial capitals, such as A Tale of Two Cities and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Notice that articles (the, a, an), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor) and prepositions are left in lowercase.

Take a moment to think of the titles of books, movies, or blogs you enjoy. They use few words. A lengthy string of words written with initial capital letters, even when it is correct to do so, is simply hard on the reader’s eye.

Titles of Persons

Do not capitalize a title when referring to the office alone. Capitalize the title when referring to its occupant by name. It’s just president, chief justice or prime minister unless you’re referring to someone specifically, such as President Lincoln, Chief Justice Warren or Prime Minister Churchill. Also:

• The company’s president reported to the board of directors.
• The CEO will take charge of finance until we hire a new director of finance.
• Captain Kirk took the ship into battle.
• The captain issued a tot of rum to all hands.

Yes, CEO is in capitals, but that’s because it is an acronym, which by definition is written in all capital letters. If the term were spelled out, it would read, “The chief executive officer will take charge….”

ALL CAPS

You do know that this is considered rude in email messages or social media postings? It is viewed as shouting, so use it when you need to shout. Or, calm down first, and then express yourself more appropriately.

ALL CAPS, AS YOU CAN SEE HERE, ARE ALSO DIFFICULT TO READ. People often stop reading well before the end of the message, so keep that in mind before turning on your Caps Lock.

Breaking the Rules

When you know the rules and follow the rules, you can then break the rules. Occasionally switching up the use of capitals can be either pithy or amusing or both.

• The Powers That Be denied my request for a raise.
• Keri got her shots for her trip to the Amazon, and now her arm is One Big Ouch.

The trick to breaking the rules is to do so without looking like you didn’t know better.