TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Heading and Title Capitalization From:"Porrello, Leonard" <lcporrel -at- ESSVOTE -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 1 Mar 1999 12:43:00 -0600
It's not quite all a matter of "personal taste."
The idea of capitalizing headers derives from the rule that titles should be capitalized (I think).
Since the rule (Chicago and MLA) regarding titles is to capitalize the first letter of every content word, to deviate might unwarrantedly attract a literate user's attention.
Though I would like to eliminate the use of caps in titles and headers since they are unnecessary now that we have so many neat fonts available with which to differentiate titles and headers, I would stay with convention on titles and deviate on section headers since there is no rule about section headers. This is eminently functional if you are forced to work with an inferior template that doesn't have headers and titles clearly distinguished. It looks neat too.
Leonard Porrello
-----Original Message-----
From: jhe [SMTP:jhe -at- POLYDOC -dot- COM]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 10:21 AM
To: TECHWR-L; LCPORREL
Subject: Re: Heading and Title Capitalization
As with many things, its a matter of personal taste.
One of my ground rules is that formatting may never draw the reader's
attention away from the contents. It may never make the reader halt and
think about the used styling. They should appear natural and logical.
Styles must always be applied for a reason and (prime direction) serve the
presentation of information. Styles should be applied to distinguish the
information from the surrounding text, not just because it looks neater
(remember it's technical writing, not marketing writing).
