Capitalization & Compound Words

Capitalization

Excessive capitalization slows down the reader and can affect their comprehension of the material. The following words and phrases should be capitalized:

1. titles and headings
2. proper nouns
3. the first word of a sentence (including a direct quote if it is a complete sentence)
4. months and days (seasons are not capitalized - "fall of 2020")
5. geographical terms (except for directional words that are not part of proper nouns (east, west, north, south) and recognized regions (Southern Maryland, the West)
6. historical periods and events
7. brand names

Terms and phrases below should not be capitalized unless they are part of a proper noun (even if they will be referred to as an acronym):

• working group
• transit-oriented development (TOD)
• level of service (LOS)
• public participation process (PPP)
• building restriction line (BRL)
• critical lane volume (CLV)

Compound Words

Compound words formed from the prefixed below are to be used as single words without hyphens:

ante	counter	macro	multi	pre	socio	ultra
anti	extra	meta	neo	pro	sub	un
bi	infra	micro	non	proto	super	under
bio	inter	mid	over	pseudo	supra
co	intra	mini	post	semi	trans