Zazou Marketing

Recently I co-wrote a grant: I was hired by an environmental non-profit to write their part of a grant request, while another writer was working on another non-profit’s part of the grant. When I got the other writer’s part of the grant to review, one of the first things I noticed was how different our headlines and titles were. We didn’t have competing tones or topics. The difference was a style issue: We capitalized different words in the titles.

Now, you may say, who cares? But in this case it mattered a lot. Glaring inconsistencies simply make you look unprofessional–which may affect whether you get the grant. Instead of just accepting her way or my way, we decided to go to an official source for guidance, the “APA Style Book.”

According to the guide, in general, “capitalize an article or a word of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.” Also, pronouns of any length are capitalized. Otherwise, a word with fewer than four letters is not capitalized. As an example, here are a few of the titles that we settled on:

• How it Will go Beyond “Compliance and Mitigation” and how it Will Benefit the Bay
• Description of the Specific Activities That the Proposed Grant Will Fund, Including the Timeline
• Description of any Partnerships to Complete the Project

Whether sending a sales letter, memo, newsletter or even an e-mail, a typo or poor grammar can damage your credibility. To avoid embarrassing mistakes, take your proofing to a higher level. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• If you’re providing a phone number or URL, dial the number or copy the URL into a web browser to make sure it’s right.
• Some words need to be capitalized, but with others it’s a style choice. It’s easy just to fall back into old habits, which may or may not be good ones. So, when you are writing, work at paying close attention to which words you are capitalizing and which words you are not. Then make sure you are consistent throughout your document. For instance, if you capitalized one person’s title, make sure you capitalize everyone’s titles. (Or don’t capitalize any of them!).
• This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you mention a brand name, spell it correctly. With the Internet at your fingertips, you have no excuse for not typing the name into your favorite search engine to check the spelling. You’ll be glad you did. It’s much easier than responding to a client or colleague who corrects you!