Academic Guides: Other APA Guidelines: Capitalization (2024)

FAQs

What are the rules for capitalization in APA? ›

APA Style is a “down” style, meaning that words are lowercase unless there is specific guidance to capitalize them. For example, capitalize the first word of a sentence, unless the sentence begins with the name of a person whose name starts with a lowercase letter.

Capitalize the first letter of the first word of the title. If there is a colon (:) in the title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon. Capitalize the first letter of proper names in titles, such as names of places or people. Italicize titles of journals, magazines, newspapers, and books.

But which school subjects are proper nouns? When you are talking about a school subject in a general way, you do not need to capitalize it unless it is the name of a language. For example, math and chemistry do not need to be capitalized, but French and Spanish do need to be capitalized because they are proper nouns.

When referring to any work that is NOT a journal, such as a book, article, or Web page, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns.

The English capitalization rules require that the first letter of certain words is capitalized. Specifically, the pronoun I, the first word of a sentence, and proper nouns like names are capitalized.

If all else fails and you don't have a reference guide to help, a good rule to follow is to capitalize all words in a title. Exceptions include the following: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, in, nor, of, on, or, the, and up. Again, this trick holds true unless they're the beginning or ending words in the title.

We generally lowercase generation names such as baby boomers and millennials, but we capitalize generation names that include letters, such as Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. Student writers could follow Chicago as well or consult another reliable source, such as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Academic Degrees

General references, such as bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, are not capitalized. Use an apostrophe (possessive) with bachelor's degree and master's degree, but not in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science.

Also, names of school subjects (math, algebra, geology, psychology) are not capitalized, with the exception of the names of languages (French, English). Names of courses are capitalized (Algebra 201, Math 001). You should capitalize titles of people when used as part of their proper name.

For example, you'd capitalize Uncle Ben and Grandpa Ed will be at the picnic, but you wouldn't capitalize them in a sentence like My uncle and my grandpa will be at the picnic. Similar to the rules for professional titles, you should capitalize the names of family titles when they're used in place of proper names.

Are academic titles capitalized? ›

Academic titles are capitalized when they immediately precede a personal name and lowercased when following a name. Examples: Associate Professor John Doe; Jane Smith, assistant professor.

Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), the coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), or the words to and as unless such a word is the first or last word in the title or subtitle.

APA Style uses two types of capitalization for titles of works (such as paper titles) and headings within works: title case and sentence case.

Job Titles and Positions

Only capitalize a job title or position when it precedes the name of the job holder.

The only words you don't capitalize are short prepositions (in, for, over, etc.), short conjunctions (and, or, etc.), and articles (a, an, the). "Is" is a verb. Verbs are always capitalized in title case.

Provide the keywords after the colon in lowercase (capitalize only proper nouns) and separate each keyword by a comma. Do not use punctuation after the last keyword. If they keywords run onto a second line, the second line is not indented. Do not put the keywords in quotation marks.

Always use a capital letter to start a sentence. Always use a capital letter at the beginning of a proper nouns. A proper noun is a specific person, place, or organisation. If you use a generic term in place of a proper noun, do not capitalise it, even if you are still referring to a specific person or organisation.

-When the quoted material is a complete sentence, capitalize the first letter of the direct quote. -Do not use a capital letter when the quoted material is a fragment or a piece of the original sentence. - When a quote is interrupted mid-sentence, do not capitalize the second part of the quotation.