Proofreading course learner asks if we are a College!

Our proofreading course learners love analysing the Guardian style. Style decisions, and the thinking behind them, often make good talking points, if you enjoy that kind of thing!

We had a query from an online proofreading course learner recently. She wanted to know more about the style ruling about using c capital letter for the word ‘college’.

This features in the style guide under C: www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c

The guide says you should use a capital C for college when referring to West Kent College; but not when college forms part of the name of a school, eg Bash Street sixth form college.

Some colleges have the word ‘college’ as part of their names – for instance, West Kent College. For these, you should use cap C for College.

Others don’t – for instance, Bash Street School may run a sixth form college. But the word ‘college’ is not part of its name. So you would use lower case c for college – eg, ‘Bash Street School is holding an open evening at his sixth form college next week.’

So we are the College of Media and Publishing, and use a capital C, because ‘College’ is part of our name.

But this only applies when you are using the name in full.

If you were telling a friend how wonderful we are, you would use a lower case c: ‘The College of Media and Publishing is the best college I have come across’.

The rule applies to other proper nouns used in similar circumstances.

See our proofreading courses