This past week as we began to design and layout out the “hard copy” newspaper, I allowed the newspaper staff to determine how they, as a group of reporters, would capitalize the stories’ headlines.
Using our local newspaper as an example, we noted that the trend has been to not capitalize words unless it is the first word in the headline or unless the word is proper.
They were all in agreement, though. Surprised me.
The newspaper staff of The Spirit of the Pioneer agreed that their headlines should abide by the proper grammar rules for capitalization.
Now that is enough to almost bring a tear to a true-blue, hard-core English teacher. Yes, they made me so proud!
Thus, in our newspaper and as reiterated by Writers.Com, the following Associated Press capitalization rules will rule:
- Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.
- Capitalize an article (”the”, “a” and “an”) or a word of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word of the title. (In other words, the first and last words of a title are always capitalized.)
Nice to work with rule-abiding students!
