Expert: Dan Smith - 10/12/2007

Question
I apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this question.

I can't find the answer concerning capitalization. It seems my question is one that hasn't been addressed... maybe because it's so obvious that no one feels the need? I don't know. In any case, I'm a tech writer working with a gang of software developers who capitalize everything that they feel is important. It's maddening. And while I try to convince them that they need not capitalize so many things, I fail because in their eyes I have no evidence to support what I'm saying. The trouble comes about because of the way things our named in our products. As an example: Dashboard. We all know that the term 'dashboard' is not a proper noun, but in the case of this software there is a component called Dashboard. So suddenly every time the word 'dashboard' is used in print, they want to capitalize it. The trouble is that paragraphs start to look like this:

Once you've open the Magnus Dashboard and made sure that all Dashboard settings are set, close the Dashboard and save the Dashboard file as...

I'm pulling my hair out as I'm editing this, and I'm trying to convince them to reduce the capitalization to only when they're referring specifically to the component in a proper way. Such as:

Once you've open the Magnus Dashboard and made sure that all dashboard settings are set, close the dashboard and save the dashboard file as...

The trouble, however, is that I don't have any concrete evidence to support my claim that when they use the term 'dashboard' they're not always talking about a proper noun. They just don't see it that way. Is there some reference, somewhere, that specifically states how to handle this situation?

Thanks for the help...

Answer
I doubt if you'll find a manual that addresses this particular issue. You might try the Microsoft style guide for software documentation, however. The proper name is "Magnus Dashboard." Just dashboard is not a proper noun even in the context of talking about the product. I agree with you, but it might not be worth getting fired over.

Hope this helps.