C’ and ‘c’ both are members of the alphabet family but have a different significance with reference to different context. However, we still recognize them as the same members of the Alphabet Family. Competing in this fast pace web world, writing has become so habitual or customary that mere grammatical errors are nonetheless welcomed. But, when it comes to writing articles for blogs or websites, it can beget some serious damage to the business brand and reputation. One grammatical error that is predominant in blog writing is “Capitalization”. An error intentionally overlooked by many writers, not realizing its power to significantly impact the quality of content.
So, here are some checks for when to on and off your caps lock.
Don’t Make the Full Stop Invisible
It’s a basic rule that we all learned in primary school, “the first alphabet of each sentence must be a capital letter”. But how often do we forget this basic law of grammar when indulging in bulk writing. It gives an unprofessional look to your content. Moreover, it often confuses the reader. Now take a look at the following example:-
“Digital marketing is the future. where digital marketing fails, the business fails.”
Doesn’t the error in case bother you? Did you not give the line a re-read? Didn’t the case error make you almost skip the full stop in between?
So let’s make it a customary action to adhere to our primary school teachings and change the case for the first alphabet of every sentence.
Titles and Subheaders Demand Attention
Whether you are writing an article for your personal blog or for a client, make sure your titles and subheaders are delivered well. For this, they should be appropriately capitalized. Now there is no thumb rule that defines the casing of your subheaders, however you can ensure to upper case the important words in your titles/subtitles. The important words could be:-
Adjectives (small, large, cute, beautiful, etc.) , Adverbs (quietly, effectively, etc.), Nouns (stool, book, chair, etc.), Pronouns (he, she, they, etc.), Verbs (walk, talk, laugh, etc.)
The words in the title/subheaders that don’t demand capitalization are:-
Articles (a, an, the, etc.), Conjunctions (and, but, for, etc.), Short Prepositions (at, by, from, etc.)
You also wouldn’t want to capitalize the entire title, as it sounds authoritative and rude. If this article was titled “CAPS LOCK ON OR OFF?”, it may have ticked off many of our readers. “Caps Lock On or Off?” does the trick and creates ample impact on the title.
Giving Respect to Proper Nouns
Proper nouns must always be greeted with capital letters. We don’t capitalize the word “liberty” until or unless it has to generate a sentence, but we capitalize “Statue of Liberty” as it is the name of a specific monument.
Give your proper nouns the respect they deserve and resultantly, your content will get its due respect from readers.
Upholding the Acronyms
Acronyms are used to minimize the length of the word, like in the case of “Graphics Interchange Format”, you may
have never heard the word before, but you know what a “GIF” is right? Always ensure that all the alphabets are capitalized in the case of acronyms. If the acronym is plural in nature, add a lowercase “s” with the necessary apostrophe, e.g., PDF’s or FAQ’s.
Never use informal acronyms like BRB, GTG, IDK, etc. in professional blogs/articles. Let their existence be restricted only to informal messaging.
“I”, but not “me”
When we talk about pronouns which function as a noun phrase, they are not included in the capitalization rule. But “I”, being the stubborn pronoun that it is, doesn’t really follow the rules. It demands respect. Always remember, in a fight between you and me, “I” will always win (pun intended, inconvenience not).
Capitalization is the essential stratum for your content that you must effectuate in order to curate the impeccable. It’s not merely the words that define quality content; it’s showcasing them in the right manner, and constructive application of the upper case is the right way to go about it.