Don’t Forget These 4 Capitalization Rules When Writing For The Web

by Ricky Dhungana I'm a web developer,designer,writer

Writing for the web is quite different than what we’ve learned in school. And especially when it comes to whether or not to capitalize a word, many writers start to scratch their heads and turn to the internet for help.

But going through the internet every time you’re unsure of something can be pretty hectic and time-consuming. So we spoke to our grammar police at Nepal's best website development & designing firm in Kathmandu and devised a short but extremely useful article on capitalization rules when writing for the web. Keep these rules in your mind and you won’t be interrupted by capitalization errors anymore. 

Now let’s get right into it!

1.  Stop Capitalizing Words That Aren’t New Anymore

Yes! When a brand new word is introduced, it’s often capitalized. However, as the word becomes more common and generalized, it no longer needs to be capitalized.

Take a look at these examples:

●     “Scuba”(Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) - It was first introduced in 1952 as “SCUBA”. But as it became more generic, it was changed to “scuba.”

●     “Internet” has changed to “internet”

●     “Web” has changed to “web”

2.  Is It E-mail or e-mail or email? — Choose One Style And Stick With It

The “e” in words like e-mail, e-commerce, e-store, and  e-business stands for “electronic.” Many dictionaries including Merriam Webster say that a hyphen is required in between two words that are combined to form a single word.

However, popular usage and modern style guides suggest that omitting hyphen for these compound words doesn’t necessarily make them incorrect. So we suggest you choose one style and consistently use the same throughout an article. 

3.  How To Capitalize Brand Names

When mentioning a brand, whether to capitalize or not ultimately boils down to how that company actually writes it. The easiest way to find that is to scroll down to the very end of the page and search for the company’s copyright signature. Just next to it is where you’ll find the correct capitalization of their brand’s name.

4.  How To Use Periods, Plurals, and Common Online Terms

The AP Stylebook says an acronym doesn’t have periods unless it’s a proper noun. So, it’s SEO and SERP and not S.E.O or S.E.R.P. 

When pluralizing acronyms, just add a lowercase “s” at the end: SERPs, PDFs, JPEGs, and FAQs.

Common nouns such as internet, website, keyword, blog, and data should always be in lowercase unless they come at the beginning of a sentence.

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Created on Oct 6th 2020 05:49. Viewed 172 times.

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