Tired of receiving bad guidance on capitalization for public sector organizations and politically designated physical environments, I did extensive research on the actual rules. I went to seven web sites, I talked with Professor Lisa Rosenstein (Ph.D. in English and Georgia Tech Civil Engineering resident expert on technical writing), and we consulted a grammar handbook about them. I came up with this manifesto of rules.

-Anne Dunning

On Capitalization

Anne E. Dunning, Ph.D.

Clemson University Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture

Most people engaged in grammatology feel that less is better. One web site rated technical writers particularly harshly:

Technical people, developers, and other nonprofessional writers tend to use capital letters for everything that feel important—particularly the stuff that they’ve worked on.

David McMurrey, technical writer and writing instructor

http://www.io.com/~hcexres/tcm1603/acchtml/gram2.html

Typically, the literature has little material on capitalization of political entities, but some examples do address the issues encountered in planning and engineering.

Government: Capitalize city, state, federal, courthouse, legislature, assembly, and other similar words when used in a formal name.

Examples:

·  Henrico County, Richmond City Council, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, Virginia General Assembly

·  City Council or General Assembly when writing about a specific governmental body

University of Richmond Writing Center

http://writing.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/capital.html

The most complete source on political areas appears at the Capital Community College web site:

The capitalization of words that refer to institutions or governmental agencies, etc. can well depend on who is doing the writing and where or from what perspective. For instance, if I were writing for the city of Hartford, doing work on its charter or preparing an in-house document on appropriate office decor, I could capitalize the word City in order to distinguish between this city and other cities. "The City has a long tradition of individual freedom in selecting wallpapers." If I were writing for the College of Wooster's public relations staff, I could write about the College's new policy on course withdrawal. On the other hand, if I were writing for a newspaper outside these institutions, I would not capitalize those words. "The city has revamped its entire system of government." "The college has changed its policy many times."

We don't capitalize words such as city, state, federal, national, etc. when those words are used as modifiers "There are federal regulations about the relationship of city and state governments. Even as nouns, these words do not need to be capitalized: "The city of New York is in the state of New York" (but it's New York City). Commonly accepted designations for geographical areas can be capitalized: the Near East, the American South, the North End (of Hartford), Boston's Back Bay, the Wild West. Directions are not capitalized unless they become part of the more or less official title of a geographical entity: "He moved from south Texas to South Africa."

Capital Community College Guide to Grammar and Writing

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/capitals.htm

As demonstrated through general inconsistencies in standards from source to source, capitalization is an art, not a science. Understanding that internal consistency is paramount, the following four rules can apply to the context of writing for civil engineering and planning:

  1. Political entities, committees, and offices receive capitalization in title, but not in reference.

The Committee on Alternative Transportation decided to approve the measure. The committee’s decision is final.

The Zion Canyon Visitor’s Bureau is the chamber of commerce for Springdale, Utah.

  1. Abbreviated names of organizations and entities do get capitalized as if the full name of the organization had been written.

The Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce launched the initiative to bring big box stores to the area. The Chamber of Commerce is now pursuing a Super Wal-Mart.

Grand Canyon National Park continues to face severe traffic congestion problems. The Park decided to pursue a feasibility study for light rail on the South Rim.

  1. Some terms fit both political entities and geographic areas. When the situation uses the term as a political entity, the political entity rules apply; otherwise, geographic areas receive capitalization as proper nouns, but references to the areas remain lower case.

Acadia National Park attracts over two million visitors annually. With a short visitor season to accommodate that volume of traffic, the Park decided to offer transit as an alternative means for people to visit the park.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road is the primary tourist attraction in Glacier National Park. The road crosses the continental divide at an elevation of 6,646 ft (2,025 m).

The concessioner for the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area recently terminated its contract because of rising costs and pollution concerns on the Chattahoochee River. While Chattahoochee looks for another concessioner, Atlantans must take their own rafts and arrange their own transportation if they want to float down the river.

Most visitors to the Zion National Park want to see the sights on the six-mile road up the Zion Canyon. To accommodate the crowds, shuttle buses run on 7-minute headways up the canyon.

The city of New York is located within the state of New York. The State of New York dispatched personnel to help the City of New York handle new security concerns. Despite the dangers associated with heavily populated areas, the City still needs to handle crowds who want to say they have visited New York City.

Washington County has not taken a strong role in transit planning. The county’s chamber of commerce considers Zion National Park to be one attraction of many, although the County does advertise Zion as its primary attraction on its web site.

  1. Technologies receive no capitalization except in proper nouns and acronyms.

Glacier National Park is designing an intelligent transportation systems (ITS) architecture. In preparation, the Park needed to buy traffic counters. After standardizing on Jamar traffic counters, the Park ordered the Jamar Trax III model for entrance stations to the park.

The National Park Service is increasingly turning to engineering techniques, such as horse underpasses or wildlife overpasses, for the protection of wildlife from vehicular crashes. The Park Service might also want to consider event data recorders (EDR) in ranger patrol cars and other Park vehicles to help characterize the scenarios that lead to crashes.

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January 19, 2005