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"Downstyle," as it is called in newspaper parlance, has been gaining
ground in the US for the last thirty or forty years, although it is
still not as prevalent here as in the UK.
One of the problems with Title Case is that it is applied mindlessly.
The way we learned it in fourth grade was that you capitalize the first,
last, and all major words in a title but lowercase other articles,
prepositions, and conjunctions. The way Word applies Title Case, it just
makes the first letter of every word uppercase, regardless of what the
word is. So, from the point of view of one writing a style guide for a
company, it is safer to avoid this problem by selecting downstyle as the
default.
I applaud your marketing department. Most marketing people like to
capitalize every other word.
As to whether it is workable, sure it is. By reducing the number of
uppercase letters on the page, it improves readability and focuses the
reader's attention appropriately.
If you want to make a case that certain heading styles should be set off
with capitals or small caps, in order to distinguish them from others
that are similar in size and font, you may be able to persuade the
powers that be. But in general I'd say they are pushing in the right
direction and you should not resist.
Dick
Stephen Anders wrote:
>
> In my company, the marketing and company ID people have put this in the
> style guide:
>
> "Never use capitals on any work except at the beginning of sentences and
> headings,
> unless it is a proper noun."
>
> Thus I cannot use the usual 'Title Case' for books, chapters, figures and
> tables. One problem with this is that cross references get much harder to
> see.
>
> Is this common style now? Is it workable/acceptable?
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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