Capitalization

Follow a consistent capitalization scheme.

Creating trustworthy internal and external communications relies, to a large extent, on the content’s consistency. Inconsistent spellings and capitalizations undermine your narrative authority. We follow these capitalization guidelines:

  • Do capitalize proper nouns, including names of individuals, places, and agencies. For example:

Michelle Stanton, Ohio, Cleveland, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA’s Glenn Research Center, The Social Security Administration

  • Do not capitalize agile, unless it is the first word of a sentence
  • Do not capitalize open source, unless it is the first word of a sentence
  • Do not capitalize federal or government, unless it is the first word in a sentence
  • Do not capitalize the words agency or center unless used as part of the full name of an agency or center or another proper noun (see the Please note section below)

When you’re deciding whether to capitalize noun phrases, keep in mind that in English, title case is often a marker of formality. Using it judiciously can help clarify that you’re speaking about a specific, official thing (such as a form, office, or person). Implying formality where it doesn’t belong or exist, can cause cognitive stress to the reader. For instance:

  • It makes sense to capitalize the phrase “Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return” because you want readers to know the exact, official title of that specific form.
  • It could confuse readers to capitalize income taxes or income tax forms, because those phrases could refer to any number of possible forms.

See additional capitalization rules in the Specific words and phrases section.

Personal titles

Capitalize a personal title when it precedes a name. For example, Director Lopez got the approval.

Do not capitalize a personal title that succeeds a name. For example, do not write Lopez, the Director, got the approval.

Do not capitalize a personal title when the word “the” appears in front of it. For example, the director got the approval or the director, Lopez, got the approval.

Whenever possible, keep titles gender neutral. For example, use firefighter instead of fireman and use chairperson instead of chairman.

Headings

Headlines, page titles, subheads and similar content should follow sentence case, and should not include a trailing colon. For example:

Making sense of Washington’s tech landscape

Privileges and responsibilities

See also: information about optimizing headings.

NASA’s frequently used words

For a listing of NASA’s frequently used words that should or should not be capitalized, please refer to the excerpt taken from the NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) 1450.10, NASA Correspondence Management and Communications Standards and Style, Appendix H. Capitalization.

Please note:

If you come across a capitalization difference between NPR 1450.10, Appendix H and the NASA Stylebook, always go with the NASA Stylebook recommendation when writing content for a website.

Two examples where the two documents differ relate to the words “agency” and “center.”

For a NASA Glenn memo, one would write:

The Agency announced the new astronaut candidates for this year.

Our goal for the Center is to reach $425,000 for the Combined Federal Campaign.

But, those same sentences on a Glenn website would be written:

The agency announced the new astronaut candidates for this year.

Our goal for the center is to reach $425,000 for the Combined Federal Campaign.