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When Is It Okay to Use All Caps?
by Tim Donnelly, guest writer —
N
oone likes to be yelled at — in person, on the phone or in print. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to stop some people from doing it on their web pages, in their e-mails and in their brochures. I am referring to the overuse of ALL CAPS which amounts to someone screaming at you in print.

Why?
When most people used a typewriter as a writing tool, it was common to use all caps as a means of heavy emphasis. If you wanted a word or passage to be seen, you used ALL CAPS. Thankfully, today we have a better method. Today, we have bold fonts.

The coastline
Study after study has shown that it is much more difficult to read text typed in all capital letters than upper and lowercase letters. We read words by their letters but also by the shapes of those letters in patterns. These shapes are called the "coastline" which refers to the ups and downs of the descenders and ascenders of the letters. When words are written in all caps, there are no ups and downs. All the shapes and heights of the letters are exactly the same. When words are written in all caps, our eyes have to read the words letter by letter which really slows us down. Read this paragraph in all caps to see how much longer it takes.

STUDY AFTER STUDY HAS SHOWN THAT IT IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO READ TEXT IN ALL CAPS THAN IT IS IN UPPER AND LOWERCASE LETTERS. WE LOOK AT AND READ WORDS BY THEIR LETTERS BUT ALSO BY THE SHAPES OF THOSE LETTERS IN PATTERNS. THESE SHAPES ARE CALLED THE "COASTLINE" AND REFERS TO THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE DESCENDERS AND ASCENDERS OF THE LETTERS. WHEN WORDS ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, THERE ARE NO UPS AND DOWNS. ALL THE SHAPES AND HEIGHTS OF THE LETTERS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. WHEN WORDS ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, WE HAVE TO READ THE WORDS LETTER BY LETTER WHICH REALLY SLOWS US DOWN. READ THIS PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS TO SEE HOW MUCH LONGER IT TAKES.

How did it go?
Probably not too easy if you could get through it at all. I had a hard time just typing it. Yuck.

Real world
If you're preparing copy that you or someone else will import into a page-layout program and you want to emphasize some words, don't use all-caps. Whomever is doing the design will probably need to retype it to convert it to upper and lowercase letters. It's time-consuming and it leaves more chance for errors. Rather than using all caps, bold the letters to save time and potential typos.

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