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Capitalization

Usage Notes

Don't capitalize random words in the middle of sentences. Here are some words that we should never capitalize in a sentence unless part of a proper noun:

  • author

  • award

  • chair

  • committee

  • conference

  • courses

  • digital forum

  • exhibition

  • instructor

  • journal

  • optics

  • photonics

  • presenter

  • proceedings

  • program

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And here is a list of things we always capitalize when referring to SPIE Members and Membership:

  • Corporate Member

  • Early Career / Early Career Professional Member

  • Fellow

  • Lifetime Member

  • Member

  • Membership

  • Senior Member

  • Student Chapter

  • Student Member

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Headlines and Titles

In keeping with international style and academic/scientific journals, SPIE uses sentence case in all instances except where the headline represents a proper noun, like the title of a book, course, journal name, or conference. Sentence case capitalizes the first letter of the first word. Exception: The first word after a colon is always uppercase in headlines.

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Otherwise use sentence case in headline or title for all these instances:

  • News articles and press releases headlines and subheads

  • Photonics Focus articles

  • H1 and H2 fields (titles and subheads on webpages)

  • On graphics, website buttons, and image descriptions

  • Academic titles of articles, papers, and presentations

  • Newsletter and email headlines and subheads

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The only instances when you use title case in a headline or title is for these four instances:

  • Proper, full name of a journal

    • Journal of Biomedical Optics​

  • Proper, full name of a book​

    • Discovering Light: Fun Experiments with Optics​

  • Proper, full name of a course​

    • Practical Optical System Design

  • Proper, full name of an SPIE conference​

    • SPIE Medical Imaging​

Job Titles

Generally, capitalize job titles only when they appear before a person’s name. Titles that immediately follow a person’s name, appear without a person’s name, or are set off before a name by commas do not ordinarily require capitalization.

        Past SPIE President Bob Lieberman

        Char Hart, marketing project manager for SPIE

Navigation Link Titles

In keeping with SPIE visual style, versus writing style, each link name in primary and secondary navigation should be title case, not sentence case. Title case capitalizes the first letter of every word except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.

URLs and Email Addresses

It's best practice to embed your email addresses and urls, but if you do write out an email address or website URL, do not include http:// or www. and use all lowercase.

        jeffb@spie.org

        spie.org/courses

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The partial exception to the all-lowercase rule is "spie.org" when it is written without any path. In print, Graphics will sometimes capitalize SPIE in this case. If you think it will help with readability, you can capitalize the SPIE, as in SPIE.org.

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Do not include sentence punctuation in your embedded link. Only link the url or email.

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