Do I Capitalize This Word?

by Chelsea Lee

Dear Style Experts,

I am writing a paper in APA Style, and I have a question about the capitalization of a specific word. Can you tell me how to capitalize it? Also, I need to know what the proper APA Style spelling of the word is. Thanks for your help!

— Wally in Washington, DC

Dear Wally, 

Your first stop in answering questions about the capitalization or spelling of a specific word in an APA Style paper should be the dictionary. APA uses Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2005) as its standard reference for capitalization and spelling, along with the APA Dictionary of Psychology for psychology-related terms. Along with the guidance provided in the Publication Manual (see pp. 101–104 for capitalization rules), follow the capitalization and spelling you see in those dictionaries for words in your APA Style paper. If more than one option for capitalization and spelling is provided, use the first entry.

Now, you might wonder, why is it helpful to look up a word in a dictionary if you want to know how to capitalize it and not just how to spell it? Well, it’s helpful because the dictionary tells you whether a word is a proper noun (i.e., a specific person, place, or thing), and proper nouns are capitalized in English and therefore in APA Style (see Publication Manual sections 4.16 and 4.18). Their opposite, regular or “common” nouns (which refer to general persons, places, or things), are lowercase in English and thus in APA Style as well.

What to Capitalize

Here are some examples of different types of (capitalized) proper nouns, along with some (lowercased) regular or common noun corollaries:

Noun type	Proper noun example	Common noun example
Author or person	Freud, Skinner, von Neumann	the author, the investigator, the mathematician
Company,  institution, or agency	American Psychological Association, University of Washington, Department of Sociology	the association, a university, a sociology department
Product	Advil, Xerox, Prozac (brand names)	ibuprofen, photocopy, fluoxetine (generic names)
Test or inventory	Beck Depression Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist	a depression inventory, a behavior checklist
Website or database	PsycINFO, Facebook, Survey Monkey, Internet	a database, a social media page, a website, online
Periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper)	Journal of Counseling Psychology, Time, The Washington Post	a psychology journal, a magazine, a newspaper
Software, program, or app	SPSS, Mplus, Davis’s Drug Guide for iPhone	statistical software, a computer program, a mobile app drug guide
Legal materials (statutes, acts, codes, bills, regulations, constitutions, etc.; see also PM Appendix 7.1 and the Legal Bluebook)	Americans With Disabilities Act, FDA Prescription Drug Advertising Rule, U.S. Constitution	antidiscrimination laws, drug advertising legislation, a constitution

 

Along with the proper nouns listed in the table above, you should also always capitalize:

• the first word of a sentence,
• the first word after a colon when what follows the colon is an independent clause,
• factor names in a factor analysis (see section 4.20),
• most nouns when they are followed by numerals or letters (e.g., Table 1, Figure 2, Panel A; see section 4.17), and
• words in an interaction when there is a multiplication sign between them (e.g., Age x Sex effect; see section 4.20).

What Not to Capitalize

This section provides some examples of what not to capitalize—especially the types of words that writers tend to capitalize by mistake. Note that proper nouns (such as personal names) within these terms usually retain their capitalization.

Noun type	Example
Model	five-factor personality model, associative learning model
Theory or philosophy	behaviorism, psychoanalytic theory, Freudian theory
Therapy or technique	client-centered therapy, cognitive behavior therapy
Concept	object permanence, confirmation bias, correlation
Disease/disorder	major depressive disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder
Hypothesis	null hypothesis, experimental hypothesis
Condition or group in an experiment	control group, experimental group, no-information group
Variable (for factors in a factor analysis, see above)	the age variable, the effect of gender
Statistical procedure or test	analysis of variance, t test, standard deviation
Academic subject/discipline	social psychology, nursing, English, Spanish,  business
Law (scientific; for legal, see above table)	law of symmetry, Newton’s three laws of motion

Again, the dictionary corroborates this style of capitalization, so if you have questions, start there.

Parting Thoughts

Capitalization is a big topic, and this post covers only some of the basics. For more on the capitalization of specific words in APA Style, including copious specifics, exceptions, and examples, see the Publication Manual (pp. 101–104). In future posts, we will cover capitalization in author names, source titles, the reference list, abbreviations, and more. If there is an area of capitalization that you would like to hear more about, please leave us a note in the comments section.

—Chelsea

More Posts on Capitalization

• How to Capitalize Author Names in APA Style
• How to Capitalize and Format Reference Titles in APA Style 
• Title Case and Sentence Case Capitalization in APA Style