Capitalisation

The general rule is that capitals should be used sparingly. The use of lower case is becoming increasingly common in publications from around the world.

Specific titles of appointments or institutions take capitals but general references do not.

Professor Robin is one of the professors of ornithology at the University of Birdsville, which is the largest university in the Southern Hemisphere.

The word ‘state’ is generally capitalised only when used to mean one of the territorial divisions of Australia.

The Victorian Legislative Assembly is a governing body of the State of Victoria. Anyone living in that State may participate in voting for its members.

It should not be capitalised, however, when it refers to a nation or to an abstract entity:

India is an independent state.

Leaders of the European states are holding a big conference.

Once a body or title has been cited by name, it should be referred to in the lower case in subsequent references, unless there is likely to be some confusion. So:

The Legislative Committee of this University is responsible for the final drafting of new regulations/rules and amended regulations/rules. The committee meets on a regular basis.

An exception to the rule occurs in the University’s faculty handbooks where the Faculty is capitalised on subsequent mention. This lends emphasis to the particular faculty to which it refers, however note that the word ‘faculty’ used adjectivally is in lower case.

Within the University, capitals are also used for a few in-house terms:

Graduation Ceremony

Engineering (or any) Building but Reid Library building (denoting the building in which the Reid Library is housed.)

Words such as preliminary and honours are capitalised only when they are part of a degree, so:

Master’s Preliminary and Bachelor of Arts with Honours
but
The study was part of the preliminary work for his master’s degree. He had a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours.

In publications intended for school students, such as Courses, TEE subjects are capitalised while University studies are in lower case to avoid confusion and excessive use of capitals. So:

TEE Mathematics II and Chemistry are prerequisites for entry into the Faculty. Three streams, a civil, a mechanical or a combined electrical/electronic stream, are available for study.

The word university is capitalised when referring to this institution only, and made lower case when referring to any other, except as part of its proper title:

His tertiary studies included work at this University, at Murdoch University and at two overseas universities.

A capital letter is used for the The in The University of Western Australia, whenever the term is used.