Capitalization

By: Morgan Balog

I know that identifying what you should and should not capitalize for cases involving AP style can be frustrating. Certain things aren’t capitalized but others are and by the end of your story, you have no idea what to do. Well after doing a little research, you can easily differentiate what has to be capitalized or not capitalized. You can look for articles to learn from the professionals.

Here is an example: (link). There are many different subject titles in this story, some capitalized and some that are not.

Titles and well known organizations and nouns are always capitalized. In the article they capitalize the words, “Kim Jong Il”, “North Koreans, The Associated Press, Sejong Institute, The National Defense Commission”, and several others. It may seem odd to capitalize “The National Defense Commission”, but because it is a national organization that has public recognition, it is capitalized.

Normal nouns that are used in every day sentences do not have to be capitalized at all though. For instance, you would not capitalize the names of animals or types of food. But stuff that is publicly recognized as separate from a group, like the names of diseases or government officials, should be capitalized.

Academic degrees, geographical regions, and stuff involving government, politics, religion, titles and trade names should almost always be capitalized. But if you’re not sure, just check your AP Stylebook.