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Post by Verbivore on Jun 6, 2008 12:26:37 GMT
The Australian Parliament and the British Parliament each work along similar lines. Specific = uppercase P
The Minister attended Parliament on Tuesday. Specific = uppercase P
Your form of parliament is similar to ours. Generic = lowercase p
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 6, 2008 12:31:06 GMT
And bugger! There I go again, replying from somewhere in the middle of a thread without first checking. May be time to retire for the night.
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Post by rickcarpenter on Jun 6, 2008 13:05:12 GMT
I believe our linguistic cousins, the Germans, cap all nouns. I always wished English would do the same. At the university where I work, the editors of some social sciences journals we print prefer the American Psychological Association style, where in-text titles use initial caps for nouns and other words four letter or more in length, and references use only first-word caps (in generalization). See owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/664/01/ for the style guide. I think this is becoming normative in the social sciences here at the University. If given the liberty to do so, I push to apply this style in journals which may use a hodgepodge 'style' despite my first paragraph's sentiments. For me, consistency is paramount. Is there a British equivalent of APA style? Rick
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Post by Trevor on Jun 6, 2008 13:10:33 GMT
I've noticed that our * in-house style guide requires us to put headings and subheadings in "sentence case" rather than "title case". I'm sure it would have been sentence case until fairly recently.
(* HM Land Registry, in case you were wondering.)
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Post by Dave M on Jun 6, 2008 13:17:44 GMT
You mean it would have been title case, Trevor?
I definitely see a trend, in formal publications, away from "Title Case"- and I find the result so much "friendlier", somehow. Just as I have grown, in the last decade, to interpret capitals as SHOUTING, I've no doubt I'm beginning to find Title Case Just Too Pompous.
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Post by Pete on Jun 6, 2008 13:25:03 GMT
I think this is becoming normative in the social sciences here at the University. Rick Rick, I have to ask, what does "normative" mean that isn't better expressed by "normal", "standard" or even "the norm"? ;D
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Post by Trevor on Jun 6, 2008 13:38:10 GMT
You mean it would have been title case, Trevor? Eek! Yes, indeed I do. Proof read, Trevor, proof read. I definitely see a trend, in formal publications, away from "Title Case"- and I find the result so much "friendlier", somehow. Just as I have grown, in the last decade, to interpret capitals as SHOUTING, I've no doubt I'm beginning to find Title Case Just Too Pompous. Yes, I think I agree with you. But you do see writers occasionally employing it to create a Special Emphasis - usually for comic effect - and it can, when done well, work.
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Post by Vadim on Jun 6, 2008 13:44:28 GMT
I'm with you, Dave. As for the question of English style in journals etc. Generally, the journals (Journals?) I publish in provide their own stlye guide, however this is for basic layout and design rather than grammar. What I will say however, is that there is a general acceptance that because they are predomanantly Engineering journals, it's OK for authors to have no grasp of the English language. I try my hardest (hence why I am here) to publish work that is simple to read, yet follows a general "good" (IMO) style. Obviously I'm still learning, but wish more would extend the same courtesey. Having said this, even within papers, authors simply copy and paste (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) references into their own withought given them any standadisation. I have spent around three weeks compiling my references and trying to get them all to read the same! And here is an example of some of my own copy and pasting from a well known Journal (in my field): ..."T. Jin, D.J. Stephenson and J. Corbett, Burn Threshold of High Carbon Steel in High Efficiency Deep Grinding, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B, Journal of Engineering Manufacture 216 (2002), pp. 357–364. R.S. Hahn, On the nature of the grinding process, Proceedings of the 3rd Machine Tool Design and Research Conference (1962), pp. 129–154. N.K. Kim, C. Guo and S. Malkin, Heat Flux Distribution and Energy Partition in Creep-Feed Grinding, Annals of the CIRP 46 (1) (1997), pp. 227–232. Stephenson DJ, Jin T (2003) Physical Basics in Grinding. Werner K, Klocke F, Brinksmeier E, (Eds.) 1st European Conference on Grinding 2003:1301–21."..... Is it me, or is aboslutley nothing constant here? Page numbers, authors' names and initials, dates, and of course, capitalisation! It's the way I've been taught, but I am trying to pull away. It is not as though help isn't out there though. Here is the referencing system I use. I just wish my university had a similar such resource . Shouldn't they all?
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Post by Dave on Jun 6, 2008 14:13:20 GMT
I'm a little unsure of the rule (or preference) on this one. I see why the first instance is not correct, however, I have always thought that titles (whether in books, articles or written work etc.) followed the rule of capitalisation of the first word and proper nouns only. Capitalization of book, magazine article, etc., titles should be the first word and all other words that aren't articles, prepositions, or conjunctions. Some I've known have used the incorrect method of word length as the determining factor in capitalization: They would capitalize a long conjunction (e.g. Although), but not a short verb (e.g. do).
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Post by Sue M-V on Jun 6, 2008 14:36:16 GMT
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
I also think that book titles should be capitalised thus. I don't like the style with only the first word capitalised. It doesn't look so much like a title. I also enjoy capitalisation for fun, à la Winnie-the-Pooh! Sue
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Post by Pete on Jun 6, 2008 14:52:26 GMT
How do people feel about initialisms and acronyms from titles that would be partly capitalised? I deal a lot with something called Code of Practice 10, which I and others abbreviate to CoP 10. But the alternative initialism, COP 10, is also common.
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Post by TfS on Jun 6, 2008 15:15:54 GMT
How do people feel about initialisms and acronyms from titles that would be partly capitalised? I deal a lot with something called Code of Practice 10, which I and others abbreviate to CoP 10. But the alternative initialism, COP 10, is also common. As an example, I would read CinC to mean Commander(s)-in-Chief whereas CINC would make me think that there are four words involved in an initialism and to try to find an expansion. TfS
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Post by Dave M on Jun 6, 2008 15:23:54 GMT
Agreed, TfS. Sue: I reckon it depends on how the title is used. If I wrote: I'm currently reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, then I'd make it "title case" to distinguish it from the surrounding text and to make it "run together as a phrase". (Much as we might write about something being A Jolly Good Thing.) On the front cover of the Book, I'd expect the same. But in a formal report, say, I'd expect headings to be in sentence case only, and am happy to see even the topmost title written that way. See, for example: www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2008/08_07/
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Post by Sue M-V on Jun 6, 2008 17:33:12 GMT
I'd always keep the title of the book capitalised as I said I preferred, wherever I was writing it.
I can see that if you have a long heading of a report or something, it might look a bit unwieldy if all the significant words were capitalised, although I'd probably capitalise them anyway. Such headings, though are normally set out in a size or font that points them out as headings, which gives a direct impression of their being headings. I'm not sure what I'd do if I were referring to one and using the same font size and style as in the rest of my text. I'd put inverted commas around it, of course, but I'd use the same capitalisation as in the original, I suppose.
Sue
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Post by rickcarpenter on Jun 6, 2008 20:46:17 GMT
Rick, I have to ask, what does "normative" mean that isn't better expressed by "normal", "standard" or even "the norm"? ;D By using the adjective normative, I mean to convey the sense it is more a process toward the norm than an unstoppable march to the norm. Normal, standard, and the norm seem so absolute.
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