Q. How should I treat names of apps?
A. Treat apps and software with initial caps, as you would any commercial product name. For examples, see CMOS 8.155.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I understand that a title following a person’s name should be presented in lowercase. Our Human Resources
Department defines official job titles at my college. We have titles that are presented with a comma rather than a preposition.
For example: director, human resources, rather than director of human resources. What is the correct way to present the title
after a name that includes the comma? Should “human resources” be uppercase or
lowercase? Should it be Mary Smith, director, human resources?
A. In running text, Chicago style lowercases titles but caps the names of departments: Mary Smith, director of Human Resources.
On a résumé, business card, diploma, door plaque, or such, your comma is appropriate
and the title may be capped: Mary Smith, Director, Human Resources.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. My professor has requested that one of our assignments have the titles of tables in headline-style capitalization. What does
this mean?
A. Headline style capitalizes the important words in a title: Six Reasons Susan Buys Shoes. In sentence-style capping, only
the first word and proper nouns are capped: Six reasons Susan buys shoes.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Should the first letter of all words in the title of a book, movie, or play be capped? I’ve sometimes
seen the first letter of prepositions and articles in lowercase.
A. Although computer automation favors capping all the words in a title because it’s easy to do, traditionally
only the important words (and not prepositions) are capped. There are exceptions; CMOS lays them out in its section on headline style.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am ghostwriting a memoir for a client who once worked at a German motorcycle magazine known as mo, lowercase. I am struggling with capitalization rules for this in the English-language memoir I am writing. The client does
not want to write “mo magazine” each time it is referenced, and when written in lowercase, mo seems to get lost in each paragraph, even when italicized. What would CMOS recommend in a situation such as this?
A. We’re cool with italic lowercase mo. Readers are used to taking in small words. Clarify occasionally with “mo magazine” to aid readers in recognizing the little word whenever it appears.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Question: When the day of a month is spelled out, as in “the second of January,”
should it be capitalized, i.e., “the Second of January”?
Q. Which is correct: “on January second” or “on January Second”?
A. Okay, this is intriguing: these two questions arrived on the same day a few hours apart. Do we have dueling colleagues? Friends
who made a bet? Or maybe—tragically—soul mates who don’t
even know each other and never will? The answer is that Chicago style lowercases the number of the month unless it’s
a holiday like the Fourth of July. Will one of you write to explain this mystery when it’s posted? Let’s
hope for an update next month.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. A coworker with a PhD in English lit comments that your example of title casing “Four Theories concerning
the Gospel according to Matthew” isn't correct at all. “Concerning”
and “according” are participles, not prepositions (thus these are participial,
not prepositional, phrases). I've absolutely never seen “Gospel according to Anyone”—it's
always “According to.” Thoughts? I'm not just nitpicking; trying to get a group
of proofreaders and editors to pull together consistently on little stuff like this.
A. Gulp—a PhD in English lit? Well, here goes: Although “concerning”
and “according” are participles, that doesn't stop them from forming prepositions.
(You can confirm this in a dictionary.) In the title cited, “concerning” is a
preposition with the object “Gospel,” and “according to”
is a preposition with the object “Matthew,” so according to Chicago style they
are lowercased. Many publishers follow a different guideline for title casing, however, by which all words over a certain
length are uppercased, so it's not surprising if you see these prepositions uppercased in titles.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I work at an ad agency, and I’m the only writer/editor/proofreader on staff. A recent title bothered
our creative director because only one word in it was not capitalized (unbalanced from a design perspective, I guess): Why
Full-Service Advertising Is More Important than Ever. My question is, first of all, am I correct that the word “than”
should be lowercased in the above title? And second, what’s your opinion on making capitalization decisions
on ad copy based on how things look? I’m willing to fudge the rules a bit for great design, but I’m
not willing to throw the rules out the window altogether.
A. Advertising design, as opposed to, say, bibliography writing, is all about breaking the rules. But here, rules and advertising
are in harmony. Not only should “than” (a conjunction) be capitalized in a title,
but your creative director is right—it looks weird lowercased.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Quotation marks in titles and subheads seem inappropriate, except those required when referring to particular works. However,
I can find no reference to support my position in Chicago or elsewhere. I’m supposing that is because
scare quotes in heads are a rare occurrence.
A. Quotation marks in titles and subheads are required whenever something is quoted. Although Chicago discourages the impulsive
use of scare quotes, sometimes they are appropriate, even in titles, so you won’t find a rule against
them in CMOS.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am writing a novel. How do I write a title of a song in the body of the work (caps, bold, underline, italics, etc.)? Example: The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” looped in his head.
A. Noooo! Now that song is looping in my head (“but it’s too late to say you’re sorry . . .”). Use quotation marks. Thanks a lot.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]