EJGE Standard of Capitalization

by Mete Oner, founding editor

What is Capitalization?

Easy to explain by an illustration. An EJGE paper has a capitalized title as follows.

High-Temperature Plasma
Vitrification of Geomaterials

The same title may appear as follows in other publications:
      High-temperature plasma vitrification of geomaterials
i.e., as if it were some insignificant gossip column heading.

The message EJGE is giving is "the following document is important."

Why Capitalization?

The EJGE's capitalization practice is based on the following concepts/principles:

1. The work itself is important—It takes a great deal of time and effort by the authors to create a scientific/engineering paper, it is not a lazy summer chat.
2. The author has to be respected—We won't lose anything by showing it.
3. The contribution to humanity is to be honored—The least we can do is to be respectful.
4. The presentation of the work in the form of a well organized paper is significant—We should show our appreciation.

These guiding principles automatically follow the fact that EJGE has been created and still governed by professionals of the field itself (geotechnical engineers) as opposed to commercial publishers driven by market forces. This has lead the EJGE to act according to these facts by paying attention to such "details" as capitalization of the paper titles. EJGE considers it a violation of the above principles to publish a paper with an all-lowercase title.

It is the hope of EJGE that other publishers also behave this manner.

How to Capitalize?

EJGE standard of capitalization follows closely the Rules of Capitalization of Titles established by the US Library of Congress. These rules were originally set up for song titles; they were later adopted for all works of art. EJGE believes a scientific/engineering paper deserves at least that much respect. The rules can be found at their website (loc.gov), but simply put, the first, the last, and every significant word in the title should start with a capital letter.