Les Jones

Blogging > Upstyle and Downstyle in Blog Headlines

SouthKnoxBubba has gone back to including headlines from certain blogs, after a short absense. It's a neat idea, and when it came back I noticed something. Some blogs use upstyle for headlines, while other uses downstyle, and some don't have a consistent style at all. What do upstyle and downstyle mean?

Inconsistent capitalization is an alarmingly common problem, especially in titles and headings. The rules are simple: if your title or head is upstyle, or in title case (all initial capital letters), then every word over four letters long should be capitalized – but the little prepositions, conjunctions etc. between the major words need not be. Example: "Premier to Officiate at Games" – all the important words capped.

But if your heading or title is downstyle or in sentence case (as many newspaper headlines are nowadays), then only the first word is capitalized: "Premier to officiate at games" – just as if you were writing a regular sentence. The only exception to this is if you use words that would be capitalized anyway, such as proper names or titles: "Thousands cheer the Pope's visit" or "Former Beatle George Harrison dies."

To be consistent, figure out if you're going with upstyle or downstyle – and then just keep track of the exceptions.

I only know about this because I was an editor at our college paper (we used downstyle). Back when I owned 56K.COM I experimented with both styles. Downstyle is considered to be more consistent, more modern, and less bombastic. But in experimenting, I found I was drawn to upstyle, so that's what I use for this blog. LATER: I guess that makes this blog inconsistent, primitive, and bombastic. Sounds about right.