Sentence case v title case

by Snappy Sentences on April 12, 2009

I was talking to a team member the other day about the pros and cons of using sentence case or title case in headings.

Quick refresher:

Sentence case is when you only capitalise the first letter of the  first word in a heading – like you would in a sentence. Proper nouns also have a capital.

With title case you capitalise the first letter of each word.

This Is Title Case.

Even though there isn’t a hard and fast rule over which style is better for the web, my personal preference is for sentence case. Here’s why:

  • There is some evidence to show that the use of capital letters slows the ability for people to scan content – it breaks the flow.
  • Sites that use title case often use it inconsistently. Sometimes You Get This. But Sometimes you Get This. Sentence case is far easier to teach, implement and apply quality control. (Great if you’ve got a decentralised authoring model.)
  • Breadcrumbs in sentence case are far easier to scan – you can easily see the different levels of navigation. For example: Home > About us> Corporate profile > Management team.
  • If you do a lot of work for government or universities, there is a trend towards minimal capitalisation for all publishing – a style that they carry to the web.

What does everyone else think?

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{ 2 trackbacks }

How I got convinced to use sentence case instead of title case | The Writing Base
May 3, 2009 at 1:39 am
The secret of a good web copywriting project? A detailed client brief. — Snappy Sentences
June 24, 2009 at 9:39 pm

{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }

Writer Dad April 15, 2009 at 8:11 am

I vastly prefer sentence case. I think it looks a LOT prettier, and I agree with you, I think it breaks the flow.

Writer Dad’s last blog post..I’m a Writer

Snappy Sentences April 15, 2009 at 7:42 pm

Thanks Sean – hey, I like your new site!
Cheers
Sally

dana strong April 22, 2009 at 7:43 pm

Interesting. You support your case for sentence case well.

dana strong’s last blog post..Web Writing Principle #2: Make it actionable

Snappy Sentences April 22, 2009 at 8:13 pm

Thanks Dana
I think it’s also from years of frustration as a web editor seeing title case abused!
Cheers

Samar April 29, 2009 at 10:25 pm

I wasn’t convinced till I read ” Sometimes You Get This. But Sometimes you Get This.”

All my arguments for the title case were silenced because when using title case I often have to keep my eyes open for it’s proper use.

Samar’s last blog post..What Travelling Means to a Freelancer

Snappy Sentences April 30, 2009 at 7:11 pm

Thanks Samar. I guess my point of view comes from many years of editing websites, and the mish-mash use of title case! Cheers.

Marc - WelshScribe May 6, 2009 at 1:59 am

Interesting. I prefer the look of Title Case myself. Now maybe that’s just a “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” thing or maybe not. I mean there’s a reason why copywriters use title case in their writing right?

I can’t find any specific advice from Copyblogger on it but Brian does have a series of posts teaching us the art of title writing all while making extensive (and consistent) use of title case.

Marc – WelshScribe’s last blog post..Afternoon Reading | Link Love Friday

Snappy Sentences May 6, 2009 at 8:31 pm

Hi Marc
Thanks for the comment.

Yes, personal preference does come down to it – and many sites do make good, consistent use of title case (Copyblogger is one of my faves). Title case is the traditional style for newspaper headlines and naturally has been carried across to the web – so yes there are a heap of copywriters out there who still use title case.

I think the big trend for sentence case has come from larger organisations (government, large educational bodies) who like to write for a low reading age (because that’s a lot of the target audience). Sentence case is familiar, easy to scan, and easy to implement. I’m won over :)

So maybe we agree to disagree?

Marc - WelshScribe May 7, 2009 at 11:44 pm

I had no idea on the low reading age market, thanks for the insight.

Agree to disagree we shall. I’ve been brought up with Title Case so my hardwired brain actually finds them easier than sentence case to scan.

stjanigunnars June 17, 2009 at 12:40 am

Hi, I’ve seen evidence “that the use of capital letters slows the ability for people to scan content” but thats only for ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
ALL CAPS looks like you are screaming and is usually a bad idea ( )

Are the evidence you are referring to based on Start Case / Title Case or ALL CAPS?

I agree with your observation in breadcrumbs. The other 2 points don’t have that much wight in my opinion.

Catherine Caine January 3, 2010 at 2:30 pm

I’m all for sentence case. I think it scans better, it’s easier to use, and it feel less self-important than title case.

Snappy Sentences January 4, 2010 at 7:08 am

Totally agree, thanks for stopping by Catherine :)

Karen Ong January 29, 2010 at 3:55 am

I am bugged that we don’t have consistent use of capitalization on our site. We just had a debate on whether to use sentence case or title case for our site, so I looked online and found your post! I am convinced. Using sentence case makes it so much easier to enforce consistency.

Snappy Sentences January 29, 2010 at 9:17 am

That’s excellent Karen! I’m glad I was able to help. On large sites (like yours), the worst thing that you can do is be inconsistent. So whatever you decide, just make sure you have the support in place so that the style is followed by all of your authors.
Cheers

Miranda Forwood March 18, 2010 at 9:17 am

Hi Sally,

I was just googling this issue to have some documentation to back up my opinion that sentence case should be used and this article was the top result! Nice work! (and I totally agree).

Miranda

Snappy Sentences March 18, 2010 at 12:50 pm

Hi Miranda

I have to say this is one of my most popular posts. We also continued the discussion over at http://www.snobs.com.au/2009/08/03/punctuation101-title-or-sentence-case/#comments.

Thanks for stopping by :)

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