capitalization

In instances not addressed below, or if in doubt, do not capitalize. Proper nouns, academic degrees, formal titles and job titles, names of companies/organizations, with abbreviations, calendars and time, emphasis, titles and headlines.

Proper nouns: Proper names of people, programs, places, and organizations should always be capitalized. Common nouns that are part of proper names should be capitalized only as part of the full proper name. If the word or phrase in question is not addressed specifically in this guide, consult Webster’s.

Academic degrees: Do not capitalize. The student is working toward an associate’s degree. Brant holds a master’s degree in business administration.

Formal titles and job titles: Capitalize if the formal title precedes the name of the person. Capitalization is not necessary for occupational descriptions. Foundation President and CEO Keetha Mills. The surprise guest was actor Steve Martin. Lowercase titles when used alone. The president of the Foundation spoke at the conference. 

If a job title is used after the individual’s name and could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence (usually set off in commas), capitalize elements four letters or longer. For more information, contact Melissa Conner, Vice President of Advancement, at mconner@foundationccc.org. If the job title is used after the name in running text and cannot be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence, do not capitalize the title. Chris is the Foundation’s director of human resources.

Names of companies/organizations: When referring to an organization or program in text, do not capitalize “the” before the title unless it is part of the organization’s official name or at the beginning of a sentence. The organization’s official website is the best reference. If the organization does not seem to have a consistent style when dealing with “the,” do not capitalize it.

With abbreviations: Common words and phrases that will be abbreviated after first reference do not need to be capitalized. Met Sacramento Charter High School was converted into an early college high school (ECHS) in 2007.

Calendars and time: Capitalize names of days of the week, months of the year, and holidays. Do not capitalize seasons when they are used generally (capitalize seasons when they are used with another noun and thus function as
proper nouns) or descriptive names for days. Christmas Eve. Fourth of July. March. spring. Spring 2008. the Fall semester. election day.

Emphasis: If a word needs to be emphasized, use italics. Do not capitalize entire words or sentences for emphasis. Using all capitals is acceptable only for acronyms and short headings.

Titles and headlines: Capitalize the principal words and prepositions and conjunctions of four letters or longer.

When there is a hyphenated phrase in a title, always capitalize the first unit. Capitalize the second unit if it's a noun or adjective or if it has equal balance with the first unit. Twentieth-Century Poets in South America. City-States in
Nineteenth Century Europe. The second unit should be in lower case if it's a participle modifying the first unit or if both units constitute a single word. Problem-solving for Nonprofits. Self-fulfilling Prophecies in Small-Town
America.

See abbreviations and acronyms, academic degrees, academic majors, academic titles, addresses, annual meeting, Bay Area, board of directors/board of governors, California, century, cities, director, first family/first lady, government, greater, Internet, intranet, months, names, Northern California, page numbers, president, program, reference works, seasons, signs and notices, states, Southern California, titles,
Web, and ZIP code entries. In the punctuation section, see colon and parentheses entries.

See also the Foundation Style section of this manual for Foundation-specific capitalization practices.