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Capitalization

See also “Names and Titles.”

In General

Official names and proper nouns are capitalized. Common nouns and various shortened forms of official names are not capitalized. Use the full, official name the first time it appears in a document or section of a document.

• The Colorado Collection contains over 5,000 works of art. The collection was started in 1939 as a teaching tool for students.

The Case for Lowercase

These style guidelines for university-related terms may differ from what you have been using. In general, this guide recommends a lowercase style, for several reasons:

• When too many words are capitalized, they lose their importance and no longer attract attention.
• Standard style guides, including the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law and The Chicago Manual of Style, require lowercase letters in running text for things like job descriptions and unofficial department names.
• Copy is more easily read when it isn’t peppered with initial caps or all caps.
• Using lowercase letters in no way diminishes the stature or credibility of an individual’s position or a department’s reputation. After all, even the title “president of the United States” is lowercased in running text when it doesn’t immediately precede the president’s name.
• When writing promotional or marketing materials (such as brochures or print ads), emphasis can be achieved more effectively by the skillful use of white space, typeface, and typestyle than by excessive use of initial caps or all caps.
• Keeping everything except full, official names lowercase also simplifies decisions about when to capitalize shortened forms of official names.

Do Not Capitalize:

• city of Boulder, the
• classes: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior
• college, the
• degrees: doctorate, doctor’s, master’s, bachelor’s, baccalaureate
• department, the
• form names, unofficial (e.g., admission form, drop/add form)
• orientation
• program, the
• school, the
• spring break
• spring, summer, fall, winter
• state of Colorado, the
• university, the (when it stands alone in reference to the University of Colorado)

Academic and Nonacademic Units and Bodies

Capitalize only the complete and official names of colleges, schools, divisions, departments, offices, and official bodies (such as Board of Regents, Boulder Faculty Assembly, United Government of Graduate Students). Lowercase informal and shortened versions of all such names. (See also “Department Names” in this section.)

• The College of Arts and Sciences offers nearly 50 undergraduate majors. The arts and sciences departments are housed in several different buildings on campus.
• The Leeds School of Business is often referred to as the business school.
• The Leeds school has an ongoing relationship with the business community.
• All of the regents were in attendance at the Board of Regents meeting last week.
• Exception: The University of Colorado Law School is often simply called Colorado Law or Colorado Law School.

Committee, Center, Group, Program, and Initiative Names

Unless a committee, center, group, program, or initiative is officially recognized and formally named, avoid capitalizing. An ad hoc committee’s name, for example, would not typically be capitalized. Do capitalize the official, proper names of long-standing committees and groups and formally developed programs and initiatives.

• The Mountaineering Collection in Norlin Library contains a wealth of intriguing materials. The collection is located on the library’s third level.
• The Honors Program is designed to provide special educational opportunities for highly motivated students.
• The Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity was formed to review University of Colorado diversity programs.
• The university’s presidential search committee met in executive session Tuesday.

Course Titles

Style official course titles with initial capitals but without quotation marks, italics, or any other formatting.

• Students should consider taking Accounting Issues for Lawyers as well as Agency, Partnership, and the LLC.

Degrees

Capitalize abbreviations of degrees (see “Abbreviations”) but not the spelled-out versions and not when they’re referred to generically.

• Lawrence Taylor received a doctor of musical arts degree from CU.
• Miller family members hold a total of five doctor’s, three master’s, and 10 bachelor’s degrees.
• Julie Jones, PhD, earned her bachelor of science degree from CU-Boulder.

Department Names

Capitalize official department names and office names in running text. References using shortened or unofficial names should be lowercase.

• The Department of Economics publishes an annual newsletter.
• Mary Moore of engineering has been promoted to associate professor.
• Faculty members from the geography, anthropology, and ethnic studies departments are cooperating on this project.

Geographical and Related Terms

Geographical terms commonly accepted as proper names are capitalized. Other descriptive or identifying geographical terms that either do not apply to only one geographical entity or are not regarded as proper names for these entities are not capitalized. Cultural or climatic terms derived from geographical proper names are lowercase, though there are some exceptions.

• the Flatirons, the Front Range, the South, southern, southwestern, the Southwest, the West, the West Coast, the Midwest, western Europe, west, western, westerner, the Middle East

Grades

Capitalize and italicize grade letters and use two numerals after the decimal point in GPAs.

• She got an A in Principles of Ecology, which brought her overall GPA up to 3.50.

Job and Position Titles

Capitalize job titles only when they immediately precede the individual’s name or when they are named positions or honorary titles (as in the last example).

• It’s common knowledge that President George W. Bush loves his ranch in Texas.
• The president, George W. Bush, took the oath of office under cloudy skies.
• The president of the United States serves a four-year term of office.
• Have you taken a course from Professor Sherman?
• Sherman, a music professor, does not teach in the summer.
• John Sherman, professor of music, does not teach in the summer.
• When Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings worked for the governor, she helped craft education policies.
• Margaret Spellings is the first mother of school-age children to serve as secretary of education.
• The vice chancellor for student affairs uses a variety of means to improve students’ lives on the Boulder campus.
• Jane Doe of engineering has been promoted to associate professor.
• Charles Wilkinson is Moses Lasky Professor of Law.

Long Titles

When a person has a very long title, put the title after the name to avoid clumsy syntax and too much capitalization.

• Jane Bear, special assistant to the president and director of special university projects, is moving her office to the new administration building.

Descriptive Job Titles

Note that descriptive job titles, as opposed to formal, academic, or administrative titles, are not capitalized:

• Features photographer Inda Gnow and writer Helda Line presented the proposal to public affairs director Noah Comment.

Titles in Addresses and Display Format

When a title appears in an address or other display format (such as list of administrators in an annual report), as opposed to running text, the title can be capitalized even if it appears after the name.

• Jean Warren, Director
• John Smith, Associate Director

Publication and Other Titles

Capitalize the following in titles:

• the first word
• the last word
• the first word after a colon
• all nouns, verbs (including short verbs, such as is, are, be), pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that)

Do not capitalize the following in titles (unless they fall into one of the previously listed categories):

• articles (a, an, the), unless they are part of a proper noun
• coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet)
• prepositions (on, between, because of, to, by, before, over, under, through, etc.)

• Letting Go: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years, by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger, has been a popular guide for parents for the past decade.
• The library recently received three copies of Francis Whitley’s latest book, Educating Minds through Active Learning.
• Students must submit their Free Application for Federal Student Assistance by the published deadline to be considered for financial aid.

In special cases, where you know that an author officially uses lowercase letters (as in the case of poet e e cummings), follow the author’s preferred capitalization.

Seasons and Semesters

Seasons, semesters, and terms should all be lowercase.

• spring semester
• fall 2006
• the summer 2007 term (no commas)
• summer session
• spring break

Structures and Places

Capitalize only the official names of buildings and formally designated places on campus.

• Anschutz Medical Campus
• Downtown Campus
• East Campus
• Main Campus
• BUT
• Boulder campus
• Colorado Springs campus
• Eaton Humanities building
• Engineering Center (these two rather generic names have traditionally been capped in running text for lack of official names; we support the initial caps in these cases)
• Mary Rippon Theatre
• Norlin Library (subsequent references using just “the library” would not be capitalized).

Students

Do not capitalize freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or first-year student, unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence or in a headline. Upper-division and first-year are preferred adjectives for students instead of upper-class and freshman.

Trademarks

Many words and names are legally trademarked and should appear with initial capitals to acknowledge that fact. Also, owners of such trademarks have a legal right to restrict the use of those trademarked terms to their specific product. As a result, avoid using trademarked names, like Kleenex and Xerox, as generic terms. Instead, use facial tissue and photocopier, unless you intend to refer to the trademarked brand name. A good dictionary will tell you whether commonly used words are trademarked and will also indicate if a trademarked term should be capitalized.

The symbols ® and ™, which often appear on product packaging and advertisements, need not be used in running text.

The University

There is still considerable confusion about whether to capitalize university when the word refers to the University of Colorado. We recommend a foolproof solution: no capitalization unless you are spelling the full name of the university. In most cases, context will clearly indicate when university refers to the University of Colorado. In cases where there may be ambiguity, writers can easily substitute our university or CU.

• The University of Colorado at Boulder is committed to diversity. To that end, the university sponsors several programs and offices that encourage diversity and provide support to university faculty, staff, and students of diverse backgrounds. Developing campuswide understanding of diversity is important at every university in the country.