This month’s blog post is not specifically about bid writing. It focuses on a particular aspect of writing in general, and reflects my strongly-held conviction that the words on the page must never impede the transfer of information between writer and reader. Put another way, if as a reader I have to devote my time and brain-power to deciphering your long, rambling sentences – or if my attention is constantly distracted by your irritating little quirks of writing style or lack of writing-style consistency – then I’m less likely to take on board whatever message it is that you want to convey to me. And I may even end up wanting to smite you…Capital crimes
One such irritating quirk is the apparently-random (or at least injudicious and inappropriate) use of capital letters. OK, so this post is turning into a bit of a rant, but please bear with me. Like many aspects of grammar, capital letters have a purpose and defined rules of use that reflect that purpose. Stick to these rules and they will not stand in the way of meaning and understanding. Your readers won’t even notice them. But contravene the rules and you run the risk of upsetting your readers. A long Sentence peppered with Unnecessary Capitals will annoy and even confuse. This is never a desirable outcome, particularly where the reader will play a key role in deciding the fate of your research-funding application.
few hundred years ago, it was commonplace to capitalise most or even all nouns in English (often with the capitals stylishly decorated). From about the eighteenth century onwards though this began to change, with writers and printers increasingly saving capitalisation for those nouns that they deemed to be important. Eventually, consensus alighted on the rule we still use today – that the important nouns needing capitalisation are the proper nouns we use to give names to individual people and things. Sure, the march of modernity has found new uses for capitals, such as letting other internet users know when we’re SHOUTING. But the proper-noun rule still holds.
So what’s getting me so hot under the collar as to have prompted this blog post (complete with shouting)?
In the course of my work I frequently come across draft text that’s full of ‘important’ nouns. These might be biological terms, for example, or specialist scientific methods and techniques. So important do these nouns seem to the writer that they often revert to mid-eighteenth-century rules and give them all capitals. Now that’s all well and good, but wholesale reversion to the rules and mores of the eighteenth century would also see small children sent up chimneys and people locked up in debtors’ prisons for missing a couple of credit-card repayments. All of which would offend our enlightened twenty-first-century sensitivities.
Perhaps then the best use for the remaining half of this post/rant would be to summarise a few fundamental principles relating to capitalisation. A plea for capital-letter sanity, if you will. Some of these principles are just the rules of sound grammar, while others are interpretive and are simply suggestions for good writing style that promotes readability.
Proper or common?
First off, always be clear about whether a noun is a common noun or a proper noun. Common nouns often refer to ‘classes’ of things, meaning that there can be lots of them. The word ‘cat’, for example, encompasses all of the cats in the world. Proper nouns, on the other hand, are specific instances of a class of things. Tigger, for example, is a specific instance of the cat class, and there’s only one Tigger (well OK, there may be more than one, but I’m talking here about my Tigger).
So far so simple, but what about words that can be both common nouns and proper nouns? Take the word ‘government’, for example. There are many governments around the world, so clearly it’s a class of things and thus a common noun. But there’s only one British Government, in which the word ‘government’ becomes a proper noun. Professors are similar – there are many professors out there, but only one Professor Jones in the Department of Whatever at the University of Wherever. And that’s fine, so long as we’re not tricked into thinking that words like ‘government’ and ‘professor’ must always take a capital whenever we write them. Governments (and professors!) are important of course, but not so important that they’re exempt from the rules of grammar. In Wales we have a number of health boards (common noun, lower case) procuring and delivering public healthcare services, while in the city of Swansea we have Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board (proper noun, capitalised). Swansea University, of course, takes capitals. A university education does not. But when ‘the University’ is used as a short form of Swansea University then keep the capital ‘U’. You shouldn’t normally capitalise master’s degrees, but do so when referring to a specific degree course like a Master’s in Health Informatics. And so on.
All a bit abstract?
Sometimes the class/instance distinction is a bit less clear-cut. A scientific term like ‘photosynthesis’, for example, is hardly a class of things. There aren’t lots of cute little instances of photosynthesis running around, each with its own particular name. Moreover, specialist terms like photosynthesis will often be ‘important’ nouns in a research-funding proposal, fundamental to what the narrative is about. This may tempt us to give them capitals. However, they are not proper nouns and generally shouldn’t take a capital. (Photosynthesis is in fact an abstract noun, meaning it’s a non-material thing that can’t be held or touched.) This raises a fundamental point of good writing style; a presumption of lower case, reflecting the fact that capitals used excessively will distract and annoy. To quote the University of Oxford writing-style guide (including their own bold emphasis):
“Do not use a capital letter unless it is absolutely required.”
If you’re in any doubt about the proper/common noun distinction then err on the side of caution and use lower case. You’ll most likely be right.
Just So You Know (JSYK)
One special category of capital-letter abuse involves the full spelling out of abbreviated terms (more on which here). When we abbreviate a multi-word term, we use capitals to indicate to the reader that the abbreviation isn’t just an ordinary word. The ‘PET’ in ‘PET scan’, for example, refers not to the super-class of animals that includes cats and dogs but to positron emission tomography. There are no proper nouns in positron emission tomography, so even though it may be really important to your proposal and even though convention says we capitalise the abbreviation, there’s no need for any capitals in the full spelling. Of course, if the abbreviation is a shortened proper name (such as HCRW – Health and Care Research Wales) then do use capitals when you spell it out. It’s worth noting that some abbreviations which are readily pronounced as words (i.e. acronyms) have become so widely used and understood that, by convention, we tend to use lower case for them. The word radar, for example, is actually an abbreviation of ‘radio detection and ranging’, but who even knows that?
Title Case or Sentence case?
Titles can cause some soul searching when it comes to use of capital letters. Your proposal document might well include titles and sub-titles to demarcate different sections, and it might also refer to the titles of publications such as papers, journals and reports. The term ‘title case’ refers to the use of capitals for every word in a title/sub-title except for words that are prepositions, articles or conjunctions (on, the, but, etc). However, when it comes to writing titles in your text, I suggest the following approach:
2. either use title case for paper and journal titles etc if they have six words or fewer (for example Journal of Applied Psychology), and use sentence case where they have more than six words (for example A mixed-methods evaluation of televised health-promotion advertisements targeted at older adults);
or always use sentence case (retaining capitals for any proper nouns), regardless of length
Other notes and observations
PLEASE DON’T USE CAPITALS FOR LARGE CHUNKS OF TEXT, AS IT MAKES THEM DIFFICULT TO READ. Bold and/or italic font is almost always a more effective way of emphasising particularly-important words or short phrases – or even, occasionally, whole sentences – in your text.
Finally, an observation that has no foundation in grammatical correctness or good writing style, but which you might nevertheless want to heed. A prospective research funder will themselves often appear to have firm views about the importance of certain words, and these may be manifested through their use of capitalisation. If, for example, the application form and guidance notes for a fellowship scheme consistently capitalise ‘Fellowship’ and ‘Fellow’ even where these are used outside formal titles (such as ‘Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship’ or ‘Fellow of the Royal Society’), you might want to consider abandoning your sense of rectitude and reflecting this usage back at the funder. After all, you wouldn’t want them to think you don’t share their views and priorities.
You’ll note that I have managed to subjugate the completist in me and resist the urge to even mention capital letters at the start of sentences. If however you share my slightly obsessive completist inclinations and you want to find out more about correct/recommended use of capitalisation, then you might start by looking at what the University of Oxford Style Guide has to say on the matter.
When it comes to winning research-funding bids then, every little surely helps. Being careful not to annoy the reviewer with questionable grammar must certainly count in that respect – perhaps helping you to avoid capital punishment (with apologies for the dodgy wordplay).
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and are in no way endorsed by my employer. Factual information and guidance are provided on a 'best-endeavour' basis and may become out of date over time. No responsibility can be taken for any action or inaction taken or not in respect of the content of this blog.
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