Capitalization

Job Titles

Capitalize an academic or professional title when it appears immediately before a person's name, otherwise use lowercase.

• As President Floten mentioned in her speech yesterday…
• B. Jean Floten , president of the college, will speak tomorrow.
• The dean of students and the vice-president of administrative services will review the new policies.

Bellevue College

Capitalize the first reference and put BC in parentheses after the first usage. Use BC or “the college” for additional references.

Example

Bellevue College (BC) is a diverse, vibrant campus community. BC welcomes students, employees and visitors from all over the world to its campuses in Bellevue, near Seattle. As the third largest institution of higher learning in Washington, the college opens the door of higher education to more than 37,000 students each year.

Academic quarters

When the context is general, use lowercase: fall quarter, spring quarter, etc.

Academic degrees

When the context is general, use lowercase: associate in arts degree, associate in science baccalaureate degree, bachelor's degree, bachelor of arts, etc. Note the plural form: bachelor's degrees, BA's, BS's, MA's, MS's, PhD's, DEd's.

When referring to a specific degree, capitalize and use abbreviation with periods in parenthesis: Associate in Arts (A.A.), Associate in Arts and Sciences (A.A.S.), Associate of Science (A.S.), Associate in Arts in General Studies (A.A.G.S.), Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.).

Majors, minors and concentrations

Use lowercase unless they use a proper noun in a title, such as English or Latin American studies.

Fax and e-mail

• E-mail is spelled with a hyphen.
• Use lowercase when fax and e-mail are spelled out in text.
• In a list, use lowercase when the word follows the number.
• Use uppercase when fax or e-mail precedes the number or is part of a list.

Examples

• Fax: (425) 335-8568; (425) 335-8568 is the fax number.
• E-mail: webmaster@bellevuecollege.edu
• Send an e-mail to webmaster@bellevuecollege.edu.

Directions

• Lowercase the compass directions, north, south, east, and west (including northern, southern, eastern, and western) when not part of a proper name.
• Capitalize in reference to a proper name or region. The Northwest, but northwestern. The West Coast, but western Washington . Washington State for reference to government, but state of Washington for the geographic region.