Capitalization

Capitalize proper nouns and titles.

  • This interview is part of the Torrance Oral History Project.
  • Then we came back from having lived in Germany, to Edinburgh, to live here, and almost the very first thing I did was sign up for Edinburgh University’s Lifelong Learning evening classes in Christian theology, which was taught by Robert Walker.
  • Even though you have training, you have a PhD in Art, you have a diploma in education, and you have lay study certificates in theology.

Capitalize titles when they are used to refer to a specific person. Do not capitalize titles when they refer to a generic position.
Examples:
James Torrance was a professor.
I was talking to Professor Torrance.

Capitalize words and terms that seem to be proper nouns, even if you are unfamiliar with the term. Flag the capitalization for further review if you are unsure.
- Some proper nouns may not be easily recognized as such to a general audience, but may be unique to a collection of speakers (such as a group, e.g. Scripture Union).
- When in doubt, err on the side of capitalization.
- Add a taxonomy link for unique terms that may require more explanation or appear in other transcripts.


Do not capitalize religious terms when they are not used as proper nouns.

  • I’m now beginning to see how vital it is that those of us who have been touched by Torrance’s thinking and touched by the gospel, stay where we are, stay in our congregations, but stay in the world—

Do not capitalize religious terms when they are used as colloquialisms.

  • The people I encounter in my own congregation haven’t even an inkling, an inkling, of this wonderful treasure, this pearl without price, that is on offer but somehow isn’t being made accessible in ways that people can grasp, certainly not in my part of the church.
  • I understand that to be part of, part of living out of the incarnation, in other words, we are here, we are meant to be in the world, we’re meant to be in the world, we’re meant to be participating in this reality and, as I’ve heard Robert say often, we’ve got a foot in both realities.
  • That for me is our task, that is our calling, that the word of God seeps into us to such an extent that it becomes in a sense ours.
  • All the others have come from China, Korea, Japan, America, hallelujah! And they go back to their own, uh, countries, with this pearl without price.

Capitalize religious terms when they are used as proper nouns.

  • One foot firmly planted here in this old creation, and our other foot is in Heaven.
  • The other person that you’ve mentioned who mediated this Trinitarian theology to you, is Bob Walker.

Three guidelines from Participatio:

  • Where religious terms are being used in the generic sense they should not be capitalized (e.g. “the four gospels” but “the Gospel of John”).
  • Second, adjectives are less likely to be capitalized than nouns. For example: Capitalize “Trinity,” "Incarnation," "Bible," or "Christology," but not "trinitarian," "incarnational," "biblical" or "christological."
  • Third, lower case should be used for divine pronouns and is preferred for divine derivatives in general.

Protip: If you are unsure of a capitalization, consider how the speaker would choose to represent their words (for example, the capitalization of pronouns relating to deities is especially relevant to this project). When in doubt, flag it for review and keep moving forward.