The very last target for proofreading as you finalize your draft for submission is mechanics. In English writing, mechanics relates to typographic style such as the choice between UPPERCASE and lowercase letters, italics or boldface type and plain style, as well as using figures (e.g., 1, 2, 3) or written out numbers (e.g., one, two, three). Professionals follow stylistic conventions for mechanics much like they do punctuation rules. If you don’t know these conventions, making them up as you go along may produce unprofessional-looking documents. Consider the following as your guide for how to get your writing mechanics right.

• 5.5.1: Capitalizing
• 5.5.2: Italicizing, Underlining, and Bolding
• 5.5.3: Numbering

5.5.1: Capitalizing

One of the worst mistakes you can make in a high-priority document like a cover letter is a glaring capitalization error such as not capitalizing the first letter in a sentence or writing “im” or “ive” instead of “I am” or “I have.” These errors are fine when texting your friends. To a hiring manager, however, the red flags they raise concerning the literacy, work ethic, and even maturity of the applicant might land that application in the shredder. At the other typographic extreme, those who use all-caps for anything other than abbreviations, as in “SEND ME THAT REPORT RIGHT NOW,” look emotionally unstable. In normal writing, we use conventional combinations of capitals and lowercase letters meaningfully to guide our readers through our sentences. Let’s take a closer look at when to capitalize and when not to capitalize letters.

• 5.5.1.1: What to Capitalize
• 5.5.1.2: What Not to Capitalize
• 5.5.1.3: Abbreviations

5.5.1.1: What to Capitalize

You can’t go wrong if you capitalize in the following situations:

• First letter of the first word of a:
  • Sentence; e.g. These pretzels are making me thirsty.
  • Full-sentence quotation even if it appears after a signal phrase; e.g., A great American humourist put it best when he said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” (Twain, 1869, p. 333).
  • Rule following a colon in a sentence; e.g., My mother taught me the golden rule: Treat others the way you’d like to be treated yourself
  • Point in a bullet-point or numbered list regardless of whether it’s a full sentence or just a noun phrase, as in this list
• The first-person personal pronoun “I”
• Major words in titles, including the first letter of the first word no matter what it is, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but not short prepositions such as in, of, on, or to, nor coordinating conjunctions such as and, but, for, or so, unless they’re the first word (see Table 5.5.2.1 below for several example titles)
• The first letter of proper nouns, which include the types given below in Table 5.5.1

Table 5.5.1.1: Proper Nouns

5.5.1.2: What Not to Capitalize

Don’t capitalize the following:

• Directions if they’re not in a geographical name; e.g., We drove east to North Bay, Ontario, from the Pacific Northwest
• Professional roles on their own without a name following (e.g. the prime minister) or if they follow the person’s name; e.g., Patrick Grant, professor of English
• Celestial bodies when used outside of the context of celestial bodies; e.g., He’s really down to earth. I love you to the moon and back. Here comes the sun.
• The seasons, despite the fact that the days of the week and months are capitalized (e.g., We’re heading south for the winter.) unless they’re part of a title (e.g., Fall 2019 semester)
• Century numbers, e.g., the nineteenth century
• Words that came from names or geographical regions, e.g., pasteurize, french fries, italics, Roman numerals, Arabic numerals
• Fields of study, e.g., history, biology, physics, economics, dentistry
• Some academic degrees, e.g., master’s degree, bachelor’s degree
• Citations at the page and line level: page 6, lines 23-27; p. 24, ll. 12-14

5.5.1.3: Abbreviations

Fully spell out abbreviations the first time you mention them and put the abbreviation in parentheses. For example, if you were to say, “The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is reporting an above-average number of flue deaths this year,” subsequent mentions of the Agency can appear as simply “PHAC.” Institutions that are so common as names (proper nouns) in their abbreviated form (e.g., CBC, which stands for the “Canadian Broadcasting Corporation”) can be given as abbreviations unless introduced to an audience that wouldn’t know them. As you can see here, avoid adding periods after each uppercase letter in an abbreviation.

For more on capitalization, see the following resources:

• Purdue OWL’s A Little Help with Capitals page (Berry & Brizee, 2013)
• The Grammar Book’s Capitalization Rules page (Straus, 2014)

5.5.2: Italicizing, Underlining, and Bolding

The standard typeface options of italics, bold, and underline allow writers to draw attention to their text in varying degrees. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage comes from overuse, which diminishes their impact. Taking advantage of their ability to draw the reader’s eye and communicate information beyond the words they express requires following certain conventional uses for each. We’ll start with the most meaningful in terms of the information it can convey.

As the typeface option that slants the top of each letter to the right, italic typeface performs several possible functions related to emphasizing words. Italics can also resolve ambiguities that would cause confusion without it. Use italics for the following purposes:

• Emphasis: Use italics sparingly to emphasize particular words or phrases; e.g., “I’ve asked them no less than three times to send the reimbursement cheque.” If we were saying this aloud, you would raise your volume and slow down your enunciation to emphasize “three times.” Italicizing is more mature and professionally appropriate than using all-caps to emphasize words.
• Words under Discussion: Italicize a word, phrase, or even a full sentence when discussing it. For instance, you see throughout this textbook example words italicized, such as just above §5.5.1.1.
• Foreign Words and Phrases: Italicize foreign words that have not yet become part of the English vernacular. For instance, italicize the binomial Latin name of a species (e.g., branta canadensis for Canada goose) or the French phrase déjà vu but not the more familiar borrowed French words “bourgeois,” “brunette,” “chauffeur,” “cliché,” “depot,” “entrepreneur,” “résumé,” or “souvenir.” If the foreign word is in most English dictionaries, it is probably safe to write it in plain style rather than italics.
• Titles: Use italics when referring to the title of a longer work such as a book, film, or newspaper. See Table 5.5.2.1 below for a full list of the types of works you would italicize, as opposed to shorter works (or titled sections within longer works) you would put in quotation marks without italics.

Table 5.5.2.1: Italicized Titles

When words are already italicized, such as a sentence under discussion or a book title within a book title, then de-italicize the title back into plain style (e.g., Vision in Shakespeare’s King Lear). Exceptions to the rule of italicizing books are holy texts such as the Bible and Koran, though specific editions should be italicized (e.g., The New American Standard Bible).

Underlining is normally an old-fashioned alternative to italicizing because it identified titles written on typewriters before modern word processors made italicization feasible. Today, underlining is mainly used to emphasize words within italicized titles or as an alternative to boldface type.

More than any other typeface, bold is best at emphasizing words because it draws the reader’s eyes more effectively than italics or underlining, especially for document titles and section headings. In casual emails, you can also use it to highlight a main action point that’s surrounded by plain-style text to ensure that the reader doesn’t miss it. Avoid bolding, underlining, italicizing, and using all-caps in combination merely to lend added emphasis to words. Use whichever one is most appropriate in context.

For more on italics, underlining, and bolding, see the following resources:

• Your Dictionary’s When to Italicize (2009)
• WikiHow’s How to Use Italics (Morgan, 2015)
• Butterick’s Practical Typography’s Bold or Italic (Butterick, 2013)

5.5.3: Numbering

When do you spell out a number (e.g., ten) and when do you use a figure (e.g., 10)? What are the conventions for academic and professional situations? It depends on your purposes, but in routine formal situations and in APA style, spell out numbers from one to ten and use figures for 11 and up. In MLA, spell out any number if it’s only a word or two, but use figures for numbers that require three or more words (Becker, 2014). In informal and technical writing, however, using only figures ensures accuracy, consistency, and brevity.

Table 5.5.3: Formal Numbering Conventions

For more on numbers, see the following resources:

• Purdue OWL’s Writing Numbers (Berry, 2018)
• APA Style’s Comparing MLA and APA: Numbers (Becker, 2014)