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Capitalization in Bylaws


Mr. Coffee

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I'm helping an organization revise its bylaws and I want to trim down their (what to me looks like) overcapitalization. However, in looking at the sample bylaws in RONR, I see more capitalization than I believe the modern stylebooks would allow. Names of committees and boards and names of offices are capitalized. So is the word "Society."

Those of you who write bylaws, when do you capitalize?

 

 

 

 

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I capitalize anything that's a proper noun. What, exactly, constitutes a proper noun can be left up for debate. ;) For instance, "nominations committee" could be a common noun, being the committee tasked with nominations, but you could also have a committee entitled the "Nominations Committee", and in that case it may or may not have any duties relating to nomination. Capitalizing names of committees, boards, and offices is certainly not unusual.

Some organizations overcapitalize common nouns, because they learned how to do that from eighteenth or nineteenth century writing (like, say, the Constitution of the United States). Back then, common nouns were capitalized as a matter of course, and occasionally you run into people who incorrectly assume that means that all legal (or legalistic) writing requires the same style.

In some legal games, I've also seen capitalization used to hint at terms of art, so that a reader doesn't need to continually search to see if a given term is defined.

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1 hour ago, Todd Crowder said:

Those of you who write bylaws, when do you capitalize?

When given the opportunity, I always modernize the language.

   • Use "Garner's Modern American Usage" for words.

   • Use the "Chicago Manual of Style" for capitalization.

You don't want to leave bylaws in 18th century style, when you don't have to.

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13 hours ago, Todd Crowder said:

I'm helping an organization revise its bylaws and I want to trim down their (what to me looks like) overcapitalization. However, in looking at the sample bylaws in RONR, I see more capitalization than I believe the modern stylebooks would allow. Names of committees and boards and names of offices are capitalized. So is the word "Society."

Those of you who write bylaws, when do you capitalize?

I follow the model for bylaws found in RONR.  No complaints to date.  I prefer to focus on trimming down the amount of unnecessary language societies want to place in their bylaws.  RONR has the perfect recipe for that as well.  Now that's a bigger challenge.

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On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 7:57 PM, Todd Crowder said:

I'm helping an organization revise its bylaws and I want to trim down their (what to me looks like) overcapitalization. However, in looking at the sample bylaws in RONR, I see more capitalization than I believe the modern stylebooks would allow. Names of committees and boards and names of offices are capitalized. So is the word "Society."

My view of it is that this is about the last thing you should be concerned about, right after worrying about things such as gender neutrality.

RONR has a very fine section (Sec. 56) on the content and composition of bylaws. Read it carefully.

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