Capital Offenses

Capitalization seems easy – basically, everything should be lowercase except the beginning of sentences and proper nouns – but within these guidelines is room for much variation and confusion. Here are some of the most common pitfalls in public relations writing that professionals should be on guard against.

Academic Majors
Someone can major in public relations, accounting or engineering, but not Public Relations, Accounting or Engineering. This can be a sensitive but important point to address with executives in writing their bios.

Compass Directions
Lowercase “north,” “south,” “east” and “west” unless they’re being referred to as regions:

I moved back north because I’m not originally from the South.

When an area is well-known as a region, capitalize it:

She traveled from Southern California to the East Coast.

 This can be tricky to determine, though, and sometimes it’s necessary to consult multiple resources – such as a dictionary, a stylebook and even a local newspaper – to find out if a region like the western part of our state should be ‘’western Florida” or “Western Florida.” (The former is the most common usage.)

Company and Product Names
The capitalization of proper nouns is one of the most basic principles of English, so unless a company or product that uses creative capitalization is a client, names such as adidas or jetBlue should be written as Adidas and JetBlue. Likewise, company or product names that use all caps, like VISA or NIKE, should be written with just one capital letter, Visa and Nike, because the creative capitalization is considered a decorative element of their logos.

Names that don’t begin with capitals but introduce them within a letter or two, like iPhone or eBay, are OK to write in midsentence, but don’t begin a sentence with a lowercase letter. The sentences-begin-with-capitals rule supersedes all:

IPhones are on sale.

Job Titles
The basic AP style rule is that a title shouldn’t be capitalized unless (1) it’s used directly before a name and, importantly, unless (2) the title is a formal title, one indicating a scope of authority or professional activity. However, this formal title part can make this rule awfully complex. So after years of trying to clarify the complex nuances of this (as quick examples, “account executive Melanie Ralston” and “janitor Ray Nicolette” include titles that would be properly lowercased because they’re not formal titles), I’ve concluded that it’s the single most confusing one in PR and contradicts a basic instinct in PR – to accord status to organizational leaders. Consequently, in the interest of simplicity, this is what I recommend:

Media relations - For media relations documents, such as news releases, follow AP style and capitalize formal titles used directly before an individual’s name:

I saw Chief Financial Officer Jackie Brown when she visited yesterday.

In other instances, lowercase the title:

I hope to see Jackie Brown, chief financial officer, when she visits.

Brand marketing, internal communications and corporate communications - For these communications, including brochures, newsletters and blog posts, it’s acceptable and even advisable to capitalize these titles both before and after names:

Max Cherry, Vice President of Sales, traveled to Singapore to attend the conference.

Do any capitalization rules cause confusion for you? I would love to know.