Upper case

Upper case refers to capitalising every letter in a phrase or a clause. It’s also known as ‘all caps’ or ‘block capitals’.

While shortened forms such as acronyms will use upper case, the ASG strongly recommends avoiding it as a form of emphasis.

Acronyms and initialisms

Use upper case, without full stops, for most

NSW

EPA

Most acronyms and initialisms take upper case but no full stops.

Over time, some of these shortened forms are absorbed into the language as words in their own right. So check on their capitalisation in the Macquarie Dictionary if you’re unsure.

Anzac

ANZAC

radar

RADAR

Emphasis

Use bold rather than upper case to make words stand out

The other common use for upper case is as a form of emphasis. This was more common in the days of the typewriter because there were few other options for emphasising text.

In contemporary body text, using upper case looks as though YOU ARE SHOUTING AT THE READER. It is also harder to read because there is little contrast in the shapes within and between words.

Bold is a much better option to emphasise important text.

All staff must return their timesheets by 5 pm on Friday.

ALL STAFF must return their timesheets by 5 PM ON FRIDAY.

Similarly, in headings, prefer bolded sentence case (capitalising the first letter and proper nouns only) to upper case.

Temporary cycleway on Juniper Street

TEMPORARY CYCLEWAY ON JUNIPER STREET

See also: Accessibility in MS Word, Acronyms, Capital letters and cases, Emphasis, Initialisms