Are you being a bit too random with your CAPS?

Once upon a time, when I was the editor of a technology magazine, I would receive a daily mountain of press releases about new products and services. We were short of space for this sort of news and short of time to put those pages together. We had to find a way of quickly sifting the wheat from the chaff.

I will admit now, many years later, that one of our criteria became the speed at which we could turn a press release into a decent news story. So all those companies who insisted in throwing random capital letters into the middle of their organisation or product names were some of the first to hit the bin. It was just so hard to type them accurately in a hurry.

There are other reasons to consider carefully how you use capital letters.

First, where do you start and stop? At school we were taught that job titles should have initial caps. But if you're going to write Managing Director or Sales Manager, will you also write Teacher and Gardener? Consistency is important in making your writing credible, so decisions will have to be made. Personally I don't consider any job title important enough to warrant caps (even queen).

Second, caps are nowadays considered to be shouting. So if you've decided to name your company NewSOLUTIONS, you risk your readers feeling like they're under attack.

Finally, business writing is about making your messages clear and easy to read. Sprinkling capital letters throughout your text really breaks up the flow - making your content far less accessible.

So think hard about your capital letters. The beginning of sentences and the start of real proper names may be all you need for speed.