Writing Guide
Capitalization ( upper and lower case)
CO-OP
The abbreviated version of co-operative education at the University is CO-OP (all uppercase with a hyphen). The exception is for the software program COOP Navigator (no hyphen).
Faculty, department, service
Capitalize faculty, department or service when you write the unit’s full name:
- Faculty of Health Sciences
- Department of Theatre
- Language Services
Retain capitals when popular usage has reversed a name and eliminated the “of”
- Theatre Department
Also retain the capital letter when going from the full name to the generic (Department, Faculty, Service, etc.) for concision:
-The Department of Theatre has added nine courses to its program offerings in 2010. The Department is also considering a new option in…
Faculty vs. faculty
When referring to the teaching staff, lower-case “faculty” to distinguish it from the academic unit.
-The University plans to hire 30 new faculty members over the next 12 months, mostly in the Faculty of Engineering.
InfoService
Always use an uppercase “I” and “S”. No space between Info and Service.
Subject areas and disciplines
Subject areas like biology, sociology, engineering, women’s studies and psychology are common nouns and don’t normally take a capital letter.
- The University of Ottawa has programs in an array of disciplines, from mathematics and medicine to chemistry and criminology.
The same applies to broader areas:
- Professor Doesitall has published extensively in the humanities, pure and applied sciences and arts.
NOTE: Capitalize the first letter in disciplines and subject areas only:
in an official academic unit title:
- School of Psychology; Department of Theatre, etc.
on a diploma or certificate:
- …so and so has met all of the requirements of the Master’s in Linguistics
and
in lists of official degree titles:
- The Department of Social Sciences offers these degrees: Honours Bachelor of Social Science; Master’s in Sociology…
Job titles
On invitations and in the University's Administration and Governance website texts, retain uppercase for job titles.
For publications such as The Gazette, news releases, Research Perspectives and Tabaret, use lowercase (Rocky Hillside, professor of geology at the Institute of…) unless the title directly precedes a name and replaces courtesy titles such as Mr. or Ms.:
- He presented the cheque to President Allan Rock
- The University honoured Professor Bill Melator.
Titles are lowercased when standing alone or pluralized:
- The president gave the welcoming remarks, followed by greetings from deans Antoni Lewkowicz and Denis Prud'homme.
University or university?
If you’re talking about the University of Ottawa, University is always uppercase, even if standing alone; the same applies when you shorten the name of other universities in a text:
- The University of Calgary has a large campus. The University also boasts state-of-the-art chemistry laboratories.
Use lowercase “u” when university is simply a common noun:
- The university setting can be intimidating for first-year students.
and when you pluralize it before a series of specific institution names:
- The event attracted representatives from the universities of Calgary, Ottawa, Windsor and Toronto.
uOttawa brand
Always use a lowercase u with the brand name uOttawa. Avoid starting a sentence with uOttawa; either use the full name or reword the sentence so uOttawa is not at the beginning.
Viewbook
The University produces a publication for prospective and incoming students called the Viewbook. It is capitalized and written as one word.