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Capitalisation

University style is to minimise capitalisation wherever possible. However, bear in mind the following conventions:

Job titles

  • Capitalise titles when they immediately precede or follow a personal name, otherwise use lower case (see following points for exceptions). For example "Professor Jane Smith specialises in torts", but "the law professor specialises in torts", or "Iqbal Ramzan, Dean of Pharmacy, joined the University in 2000", but "the dean joined the University in 2000".
  • When a hyphenated title is capitalised, capitalise the initial letters of each part, for example "Professor Charlie Benrimoj, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Strategic Planning)".
  • In line with government style, the terms Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Deputy or Pro-Vice-Chancellor are always capitalised when referring to the most senior principal officers of the University (for example "Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence", but "the vice-chancellors of Australian universities"). However, references to previous incumbents of those positions do not require capitalisation ("Gavin Brown served as vice-chancellor of Sydney for more than a decade").
  • Do not capitalise occupations that informally describe a person's job, for example "editor Katie Leach" but "Writer and Subeditor Katie Leach".

See University-specific terms and titles for information on when to capitalise terms referring to the University.

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Degrees, subjects, courses and units of study

Capitalise the formal names of degrees or units of study, but avoid capitalising subject names. For example, "she is taking the unit Epidemiology Methods and Uses as part of her clinical epidemiology studies".

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Departments, schools and faculties

Only capitalise formal names, so "the Faculty of Science", but "the science faculty" or "the faculty". Similarly, generic references to departments or schools should not be capitalised. Only capitalise when referring to an official name, eg "the School of Public Health".

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Government terms

See the separate entry on government terms.

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Publications, works of art and historical periods

See the entry on titles and citations.

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Headings

See the section on headings.

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