Capitalization in your thesis

The rules for capitalization in theses sound straightforward. You begin each new sentence with a capital letter. In addition, you capitalize names of people and organizations. But, it is not always as simple as it seems. There are many exceptions to the basic rules. In this article we tell you everything you need to know about capitalization in your thesis, including some examples. 

You start every sentence with a capital letter. In addition, you use capital letters at the beginning of a name. This applies, for example, to any proper noun, for example the name of a country, a person, a book title, an organization, a brand or a language. 

However, there are all kinds of exceptions to these rules. For example, you write bol.com with a lowercase letter (that is the official spelling they use themselves), even though it is a brand name. Furthermore, you write something like ‘marketing manager’ with lower case, but ‘Chief Information Officer’ with upper case.

In short: capitalization is not always as obvious as the basic rules make it out to be. In this article, we'll help you make the right choices around capitalization in your thesis, and show you some examples.

To recognize whether something is a name, you need to know the distinction between proper nouns (a name that refers to one unique person, organization, place or thing) and generic nouns (which refer to a group of people, organizations, places or things). For proper nouns, you use a capital letter at the beginning. For generic nouns, use a lowercase letter.

• Proper nouns include Google, Gmail account (a compound of "Gmail" and "account"), Joe Biden, Canada and German. 

• Generic nouns include municipality (so correct is "municipality of Utrecht," not "Municipality of Utrecht"), Christmas wreath, the court, the board and northern Netherlands. 

In general, if there are several of an object or person, use lowercase letters. If there is only one of it or it is a self-selected name, then use capital letters.

Note that for some names you do use a capital letter. This applies, for example, to periods in history or to periods that recur annually. Therefore, you write months and names of days with a lowercase letter ("Tuesday," "July," etc.). The same applies, for example, to "the Middle Ages" and "prehistory." 

Furthermore, you refer to religions with capital letters (i.e., "Christianity" and "Islam"). You also refer to the gods themselves with capital letters ("God" and "Allah").

Are you referring to a brand or organization? Then you almost always use a capital letter to begin each word of the brand or organization name. You only don't do this if the organization itself uses a different spelling. Therefore, always check the official site of the organization or brand for how they write their name. Stick to that spelling. This also applies to abbreviations of company names (such as CoC or RIVM).

For example, the following brand names are correct:

• Coca Cola

• bol.com (with lowercase)

• Chamber of Commerce (or CoC).

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• Central Bureau of Statistics

• HEMA (all capital letters)

• Coolblue

• the Supreme Court

You also generally write holidays with a capital letter at the beginning. Think of "Easter" or "Christmas." 

Note that "christmas" is written with a lowercase letter. If you are talking about "Christmas Day" and "Boxing Day," then you do use capital letters.
 

Place names are always capitalized. Is it a compound word? Then, you capitalize both parts of the name. That's why it's "Zuid-Holland" and not "zuid Holland." 

In the above case, you are talking about a specific province name. But what if you are talking about the south of the Netherlands in general? In that case, you don't write "south" with a capital letter. So it should be "south Netherlands."

In Dutch, many surnames occur with an insertion (such as "de", "van" or "van de"). If you write the name in full (such as "Jan de Vries"), then you write the insert with a lowercase letter. In an academic text, however, you usually refer to an author with just the last name. In such a case, you do use a capital letter at the beginning of the insert. 

Correct is thus:

• De Vries and Van Dijk (2015) conducted research on...

• This is according to research by O'Neill and Maxwell (2019). 

• Mr. de Jonge disagrees.

Want to know more about using names in your thesis? Then, check out our article on names and initials. 

After a colon, you never use a capital letter unless the colon is followed by a proper name or a quotation. In every other case, you use a lowercase letter after a colon (just like after a semicolon). 

Correct is thus:

• As Pietersen (2018, p. 5) says: "The research is not yet complete. We will work on that in the coming years." 

• For this study, the interviews of three U.S. presidents were analyzed: Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama. 

• The survey asked questions about three topics: the ordering process, customer service, and order shipment. 

Job titles are generally not capitalized. However, you do capitalize English job titles.

So, you would capitalize "Chief Information Officer," but otherwise write "director," "marketer," "marketing manager" or "customer service manager." Chief Information Officer is not yet a native Dutch word, which is why (at least for now) it is not spelled with capital letters like it is in English. 

By the way, you can always check these kinds of words in the online dictionary. This way, you can quickly discover whether you write them with or without a capital letter. 

Our editors often encounter errors in capitalization in theses for some words in particular. These are mainly abbreviations that have now become a common word, and should therefore be written in lower case.

We have listed a few of them below so you can avoid making capitalization mistakes:

E.G.

• Error: EG

• Correct: e.g.

CLA

• Error: collective bargaining agreement

• Correct: cao

CV

• Error: CV

• Correct: resume

HBO study

• Error: college studies

• Correct: college study

Iphone

• Error: Iphone, IPhone

• Correct: iPhone

TV

• Error: TV

• Correct: TV

VWO students

• Wrong: VWO students, VWO, VWO examination

• Correct: vwo students, vwo, vwo exam

Capitalization errors are one of the most common language mistakes made in theses. This is not surprising; there are quite a few exceptions to each rule. Want to make sure you don't make these kinds of mistakes when you submit your thesis? Our experienced editors are happy to review your thesis for you and make sure every capital letter and lowercase letter is correct. They will also correct any other language errors or poorly written sentences for you. The result? An error-free thesis that you can hand in with confidence!