How to capitalise headlines?
With the introduction of the weblog to this site I often asked myself how I ought to capitalise my headlines. This gets especially tricky as I was born in Germany, where all nouns are always capitalised.
The practice of capitalising all nouns was also common in English before the 1800’s but has gradually become extinct.
The American Declaration of Independence. Observe the capitalised Representatives.
An example for this is the American Declaration of Independence, in which all nouns were capitalised.
Capitalisation in today’s publications
Nowadays, capitalisation is a science of its own with every major publication adopting a different technique.
As a rule of thumb, British publishers tend to use sentence-style capitalisation, which capitalises only the first word and all proper nouns. A proper noun represents a specific person, place or thing, unlike a common noun, which is more generic. All names are automatically proper nouns, as there is only one instance of the person, place or thing. London or the French are both proper nouns, while city or people are common nouns.
Practice among U.S. publishers is more varied. Some choose to capitalise all words except prepositions, internal articles or conjunctions, while others simply capitalise words with more than 3 or 4 letters.
In the English language there have been relatively few style-guides for capitalisation. One which I did come across was the The Oxford Guide to Style. (Also check out their link section: It has some typographic goodies.)
Unfortunately, due to the few regulations on capitalisation, almost anything is allowed, including the bad practice of SHOUTING. Please, even though it might be allowed, do not fall to such depths, do not resort to getting attention at the cost of good typography. (If you are interested check out the initiative to abolish the CAPS key.)
The equally varied capitalisation in creative works is just as ignorant of (the few) typographic rules, yet is acceptable as it aims for feedback from the viewer/reader.
Bringing our attention back to headlines, it does not matter (to a certain extent) how you choose to capitalise them, but rather that you are persistent in your practice.
In the future I will employ sentence-style capitalisation with the possible, occasional exception as long as it is justified. I still have to fix a couple of older weblog entries, but from now on, sentence-style capitalisation is all that you will see on this weblog.
// johno
Sunday, November 18th 2007
at 14:13 PM
An interesting topic indeed. I’ve got a draft post about this topic. I do adhere to certain rules. Basically capitalise the first letter (common), and don’t capitalise the little stuff (e.g. prepositions, conjunctions, etc). There are numerous different style guides. What I do suggest to those who aren’t sure, is to look at headlines in good magazines and newspapers.
So I think the headline of this post is fine, though my personal preference would read:
How to Capitalise Headlines?
Something else that I think is not necessary is a closing full stop. The full stop (period) is used to mark the end of sentences--to differentiate one sentence from another. The headline by its very nature is already separated (stands on its own line), so a full stop is superfluous.
// Dominik Lenk
Sunday, November 18th 2007
at 17:13 PM
Johno: You use the “American style” for capitalising headlines. I had a browse through a couple of newspapers when I did my shopping and it seems that they all stick with ‘sentence-style’ capitalisation. But that shouldn’t really surprise me, as I am in England right now.
// Ian Clifton
Wednesday, December 5th 2007
at 4:19 AM
MLA (Modern Language Association) and the Chicago Manual of Style (one of the many CMS acronyms) recommend capitalizing all words except articles, coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and “to” in infinitives (such as “to Kill"). The first and last word are capitalized regardless of those exceptions as is the word immediately following a colon. MLA is the format used most for humanities-related organizations, papers, etc.
APA, on the other hand, requires capitalizing any word that has four or more letters, including prepositions. Surprisingly, APA uses what you might call “sentence capitilization” for their references format.
Despite my English background, I choose to capitalize the first letter of every word. I am often rushing to complete a blog post, and I want to spend as little time as possible worrying about those little details. Consistency is the key.
// Dominik Lenk
Wednesday, December 5th 2007
at 18:39 PM
Ian: Thanks for you post; you obviously researched the topic more than me;-)
I am still thinking about which format I should implement on this blog, at the moment it feels a little ‘messy’. Does anyone have any recommendations which format is more readable? (Recommendations are nice, but ultimately the headline has to be read and not just look pretty...)
// Buy Gumbo
Saturday, March 22nd 2008
at 23:14 PM
When I can’t figure out my grammer, I just get out my handy book. Here’s a link if you want one, too. Not that you need it, though. I like your style.
http://0312406851.buygumbo.com/Rules-for-Writers/