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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. |
Wikipedia's house style avoids unnecessary capitalization; most capitalization is for proper names, acronyms, and initialisms. It may be helpful to consult MOS: Proper names if in doubt about whether a particular item is a proper name.
Capital letters are sometimes a matter of regional differences; for example, British writers and editors are more inclined to use them than their North American counterparts. If possible, as with spelling, use rules appropriate to the cultural and linguistic context.
Do not use for emphasis
Initial capitals or all capitals should not be used for emphasis. For example: "it is not only a LITTLE learning that is dangerous" and "it is not only a Little learning that is dangerous" are both incorrect; use italics instead: "it is not only a little learning that is dangerous."
Section headings
Capitalize the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case. Thus "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations".
Titles
Titles such as president, king, or emperor start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name): "President Nixon", not "president Nixon". When used generically, they should be in lower case: "De Gaulle was the French president." The correct formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun. Hence: "Hirohito was Emperor of Japan." Similarly, "Louis XVI was the French king" but "Louis XVI was King of France", King of France being a title in that context. Likewise, capitalize styles of nobility: "Her Majesty" or "His Highness". (Reference: Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed., 8.35; The Guardian Manual of Style, "Titles" keyword.) Exceptions may apply for specific offices.
In the case of "prime minister", either both words begin with a capital letter or neither, except, obviously, when it starts a sentence. Again, when using it generically, do not use a capital letter: "There are many prime ministers around the world." When making reference to a specific office, generally use uppercase: "The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said today…" (A good rule of thumb is whether the sentence uses a definite article [the] or an indefinite article [a]. If the sentence uses the, use "Prime Minister". If the sentence uses a, go with "prime minister". However to complicate matters, some style manuals, while saying "The British Prime Minister", recommend "British prime minister".)
Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents
Names of religions, whether as a noun or an adjective, and their followers start with a capital letter.
Proper nouns and titles referencing deities are capitalized: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. The same is true when referring to important religious figures, such as Muhammad, by terms such as the Prophet. Common nouns should not be capitalized: the Norse gods, the Christian god, personal god. Transcendent ideas in the Platonic sense also begin with a capital letter: Good and Truth. Pronouns referring to deities, or nouns (other than names) referring to any material or abstract representation of any deity, human or otherwise, are not capitalized.
The names of major revered works of scripture like the Bible, the Qur'an, the Talmud, and the Vedas should be capitalized (but not italicized). The adjective biblical should not be capitalized. Koranic is normally capitalised, but usage varies for talmudic, vedic, etc. Be consistent in an article.
Do not capitalize terms denoting types of religious or mythical beings such as angel, fairy or deva. The personal names of individual beings are capitalized as normal (the angel Gabriel). An exception is made when such terms are used in fantasy fiction and they also denote ethnicities, in which case they are capitalized.
Philosophies, theories, doctrines, and systems of thought do not begin with a capital letter, unless the name derives from a proper noun: lowercase republican refers to a system of political thought; uppercase Republican refers to a specific Republican Party (each party name being a proper noun). Even so, watch for idiom: Platonic ideas, or even Ideas, as a combination of proper nouns, but platonic love (and usually abelian group).
Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth (as a common noun), original sin or transubstantiation.
Calendar items
The names of months, days, and holidays always begin with a capital letter: June, Monday, Fourth of July, Michelmas, Ides of March.
Seasons start with a capital letter when they go with another noun or when they personify. Here they function as proper nouns: "Winter Solstice"; "Autumn Open House"; "I think Spring is showing her colors"; "Old Man Winter".
However, in the general sense, they do not start with a capital letter: "This summer was very hot."
Animals, plants, and other organisms
Editors have hotly debated whether the common names of species should start with a capital letter, and this remains unresolved. As a matter of truce, both styles are acceptable (except for proper names), but create a redirect from the alternative form, to prevent article duplication.
Celestial bodies
Names of other planets and stars are proper nouns and begin with a capital letter: "The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux."
The words sun, earth, and moon are proper nouns when the sentence uses them in an astronomical context, but not elsewhere: so "The Sun is a main sequence star, with a spectral class of G2"; but "It was a lovely day and the sun was warm". Note that these terms are only proper nouns when referring to a specific spectral body (our Sun, Earth and Moon): so "The Moon orbits the Earth"; but "Pluto's moon Charon".
Directions and regions
Regions that are proper nouns, including widely known expressions such as Southern California, start with a capital letter. Follow the same convention for related forms: a person from the Southern United States is a Southerner.
Directions (north, southwest, etc.) are not proper nouns and do not start with a capital letter. The same is true for their related forms: someone might call a road that leads north a northern road, compared to the Great North Road.
If you are not sure whether a region has attained proper-noun status, assume it has not.
Most adjectives derived from proper-nouns should be capitalised, e.g.: "the English people", "the London commuter belt", but "cheshire cheese", "french polish".
Institutions
Proper names of specific institutions (for example, Harvard University, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, George Brown College, etc.) are proper nouns and require capitalization.
However, the words for types of institutions (church, university, college, hospital, high school, bank, etc.) do not require capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name.
Military terms
The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper noun, it should be capitalized. Where there is uncertainty as to whether a term is generally accepted, consensus should be reached on the talk page.
- Military ranks follow the same capitalization guidelines as titles (see above). Thus, one would write "Brigadier General John Smith", or "John Smith was a brigadier general".
- Formal names of military units, including armies, navies, air forces, fleets, regiments, battalions, companies, corps, and so forth are proper nouns and should be capitalized. However, the words for types of military unit (army, navy, fleet, company, etc.) do not require capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name. Thus, the American army, but the United States Army. Unofficial but well known names should also be capitalized (the Green Berets, the Guard).
- Correct: the Fifth Company; the Young Guard; the company rallied.
- Incorrect: The Company took heavy losses. The 3rd battalion retreated.
- Accepted full names of wars, battles, revolts, revolutions, rebellions, mutinies, skirmishes, risings, campaigns, fronts, raids, actions, operations and so forth are capitalized (Spanish Civil War, Battle of Leipzig, Boxer Rebellion, Action of July 8, 1716, Western Front, Operation Sealion). The generic terms (war, revolution, battle, etc) take lowercase when standing alone ("We went to war"; "The battle began"; "The raid succeeded"). As a rule of thumb, if a battle, war, etc has its own Wikipedia article, the name should be capitalized in articles linked to it as it is in the article name.
- Specific names of medals and awards are capitalized (Medal of Honor, Victoria Cross).
Musical genres
Names of musical genres do not require capitalization at all, unless the genre name contains a proper noun such as the name of a place. For example:
- Incorrect: They are a Psychedelic Rock band.
- Correct: They are a psychedelic rock band.
- Incorrect: They are a Chicago House band.
- Correct: They are a Chicago house band.
Radio formats such as adult contemporary or classic rock are also not capitalized, unless they are abbreviated. For instance, if a radio station's format is given as "adult album alternative", do not capitalize, but if AAA, a common abbreviation for this format, is used instead, then do capitalize the abbreviation.
Acronyms and initialisms
When showing the source of an acronym, initialism, or syllabic abbreviation, emphasizing the letters that make up the acronym is undesirable:
- Incorrect: FOREX (FOReign EXchange)
- Incorrect: FOREX (foreign exchange)
- Correct: FOREX (foreign exchange)
If it is necessary to do so, for example, to indicate the etymology, use italics: FOREX (from "foreign exchange")
All caps
Avoid writing in all capitals:
- Reduce newspaper headlines and other titles from all caps to title case: Replace "WAR BEGINS TODAY" with "War Begins Today". This is what The New York Times does when transcribing its historical collection.[1]
- Reduce track titles on albums where all or most tracks are in all capitals to title case.
- Reduce court decisions from all caps to title case: The decision when issued was "ROE v. WADE", but write it as Roe v. Wade.
- Reduce proclamations, such as those for the Medal of Honor from all caps to title case.
- Instead of all caps for emphasis, use italics. See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (emphasis)
- For trademarks, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks).
However, write acronyms and initialisms in all capitals. But note that some acronyms have now become ordinary lowercase words, such as scuba and laser.
Mixed or non-capitalization
- See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
- See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)
For trademarks that are given in mixed or non-capitalization by their owners (such as adidas), follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules. Trademarks beginning with a one-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as a separate letter do not need to be capitalized if the second letter is capitalized (e.g., iPod or eBay). The mixed or non-capitalized formatting should be mentioned in the article lead, or illustrated with a graphical logo.
Some individuals do not want their personal names capitalized. In such cases, Wikipedia articles may use lower case variants of personal names if they have regular and established use in reliable third-party sources. If multiple styles have regular and established use in reliable sources, use the orthography preferred by the individual.
In articles where the case of symbols is significant, like those related to programming languages or mathematical notation (for example, n is not equivalent to N), the title should reflect this. It is best to avoid putting symbols like n at the beginning of a sentence where English rules would require capitalization.
Anglo- and similar prefixes
Most words with prefixes such as Anglo-, Franco-, etc., are capitalized. For example, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-French and Anglo-Norman are all capitalized. However, there is some variation concerning a small number of words of French origin. In French, these words are not capitalized, and this sometimes carries over to English. There are variations by country, and since editors often refer to only one dictionary, they may unwittingly contravene WP:ENGVAR by changing usage to that of their own country. In general terms, Americans are most favourable to capitalization and Canadians least favourable, with other countries falling somewhere in between. The main exceptions to the capitalization rule are the following.[1]
- anglicism, gallicism, etc. These words are often, but not always, capitalized. Anglicism is less likely to be capitalized in Canada.
- anglicize, gallicize, etc. Anglicize is often capitalized in the U.S., and sometimes in other countries. Gallicize is often capitalized in the U.S., and usually capitalized in other countries.
- anglophile, francophile, etc. Words in this category are usually capitalized both as nouns and adjectives, except in Canada where they sometimes are.
- anglophobe, francophobe, etc. Words in this category are capitalized in all countries except Canada, where they sometimes are. The same applies to anglophobic.
- anglophone, francophone, etc. These words are often capitalized in the U.S. as adjectives, and usually as nouns. They are usually not capitalized in other countries, whether as nouns or adjectives.
Music albums
Trademarks
Trademarks should be written in a way that follows standard English text formatting and capitalization rules.
Notes
- ^ Sources have been consulted for the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, but not for Ireland or South Africa. Sources: U.S.: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., The New Oxford American Dictionary. Canada: The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Gage Canadian Dictionary. U.K.: The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised), The Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary (English-French). Australia: The Australian Oxford Dictionary. New Zealand: The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary.
