Case styles

In English, a variety of case styles are used in various circumstances:

Sentence case: the most common in English prose. Generally equivalent to the
baseline universal standard of formal English orthography mentioned above; that is,
only the first word is capitalised, except for proper nouns and other words which are
generally capitalized by a more specific rule.
Title Case (also known as headline style): all words are capitalised except for certain
subsets defined by rules that are not universally standardised. The standardisation is
only at the level of house styles and individual style manuals. (See further explanation
below at Headings and publication titles.) A simplified variant is Start Case, where all
words, including articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, start with a capital letter.
ALL CAPS: capital letters only. This style can be used in headings and special
situations, such as for typographical emphasis in text made on a typewriter. With the
advent of the Internet, all-caps is more often used for emphasis; however, it is
considered poor netiquette by some to type in all capitals, and said to be tantamount to
shouting.
[4]
Long spans of Latin-alphabet text in all upper-case are harder to read
because of the absence of the ascenders and descenders found in lower-case letters,
which can aid recognition.
SMALL CAPS: capital letters are used which are the size of the lower-case "x". Slightly
larger small caps can be used in a MIXED CASE fashion. Used for acronyms, names,
mathematical entities, computer commands in printed text, business or personal
printed stationery letterheads, and other situations where a given phrase needs to be
distinguished from the main text.
lowercase only: no capital letters. This style is sometimes used for artistic effect, such
as in poetry. Also commonly seen in computer commands and SMS language, to avoid
pressing the shift key in order to type quickly.







The main examples are as follows (from most to least capitals used):
Example Rule
THE VITAMINS ARE IN MY FRESH CALIFORNIA RAISINS All-uppercase letters
The Vitamins Are In My Fresh California Raisins
Start case capitalization of
all words, regardless of
the part of speech
The Vitamins Are in My Fresh California Raisins
Capitalization of the first word,
and all other words, except
for articles,prepositions,
and conjunctions
The Vitamins are in My Fresh California Raisins
Capitalisation of the first word,
and all other words, except for
articles, prepositions,
conjunctions, and forms of to
be
The Vitamins Are in my Fresh California Raisins
Capitalization of the first word,
and all other words, except
for closed-class words
The Vitamins are in my fresh California Raisins
Capitalization of all nouns and
the first word
the Vitamins are in my fresh California Raisins Capitalization only of nouns
The vitamins are in my fresh California raisins
Sentence case capitalization
of only the first word, proper
nouns and as dictated by
other specific English rules
the vitamins are in my fresh California raisins
Mid-sentence case
capitalization of proper nouns
only
the vitamins are in my fresh california raisins
All-lowercase letters
(unconventional in formal
English)