Capitalization | FEWS NET Help Center

FEWS NET uses sentence case for most writing. Sentence case only capitalizes the first word of each string of text and any proper nouns. Using sentence case makes it easy to scan FEWS NET writing for important proper nouns like countries or organization names.

Use title case for titles and subtitles that have 6 or fewer words on web pages and documents only. Title case capitalizes all words except for non-initial articles like “a, the, and”, etc. When counting the number of words, “FEWS NET” counts as 1 word, and non-initial articles do not count.

Use sentence case for all text in slide decks, including individual slide titles.

Do

Use sentence case for page and document titles that are longer than 6 words. Example: “Historic high needs anticipated across Southern Africa through early 2025”
Use title case for web page and document titles that are shorter than 6 words. Example: “Acute Food Insecurity Data” as a web page title
Use sentence case for slide titles. Example: “Upcoming action items”
Use sentence case for visualization titles. Example: “Kilograms of maize that a goat can purchase in Gode, Somalia”
Use sentence case for text describing actions in a user interface. Example: “Submit form” on a button used to submit a form entry

Don’t

Capitalize words for emphasis.
Capitalize words that are not the first word in a text string or a proper noun.
Use title case for section headings. Use sentence case for all headings other than short titles or subtitles at the beginning of web pages or documents.

Rules for technical writing

Technical writing for FEWS NET documentation and FEWS NET product user interfaces should follow additional rules for the types of terms included in the table below. Don’t use these rules for communication or reporting products.

Above all, use your judgment. These rules should not be used so stringently that it looks like we have made a mistake.

Term	Capitalization rules	Notes and examples
Actions in UI	Cap first word of an action if referring to a specific button/action in the UI.	Do: Click Submit. Learn to submit data. Click Save selection. Don’t: Learn to Submit data.
Dashboard	Capitalized when referring to a specific dashboard by name. Regular sentence case otherwise.	Do: Data Freshness Dashboard This dashboard... Don’t: Data Freshness dashboard Data freshness dashboard This Dashboard
Dashboard names (e.g., Crop Assessment, Data Freshness)	Title case and use Dashboard at the end.
Data fields	Sentence case in UI. Always cap and bold when referring to an item in the UI. Regular sentence case if not referring to a UI item.	Add Total kcals consumed Total kcals consumed by a household in the reference year from this livelihood strategy
Data point types (Livelihood/Community/Seasonal/Baseline) Activity Annual Production Performance Coping Strategy Crop/Livestock Production (note, these may also be metadata options such as in the LEX UI legends) Event/s Expandability Factor Fact/s Hazard/s Livelihood Strategy Market Prices Occurrences Phases Threshold Value/s Wealth Group	Title case when used as a technical term.	Do: Import Acute Food Insecurity Phases To refresh the Data Point Facts… The value of… Don’t: The Value of…
Topics/Domains (including Semi-Structured)	Title case when referring to the domain or used as a technical term.
Metadata categories (common) Classified products Common Community Country/ies Country groups Currency/ies Market Metadata Product Relationship Unit of measure	Sentence case in UI. Always cap and bold when referring to an item in the UI. Regular sentence case if not referring to a UI item or using as a technical term.	Do: Narrative metadata (in UI) Click Narrative metadata.
Metadata categories (technical) Admin Unit (Livelihood Zone) Baseline Characteristics Group Data Usage Policy Geographic Unit Hazard Category Indicator Livelihood Category Livelihood Zone Scenario Season Seasonal Activity Type (Data) Source Document (Data) Source Organization Wealth Category Wealth Group Characteristic	Title case
Metadata options This also includes hard coded options such as Livelihood Strategy Types.	Sentence case in UI. Always cap and bold when referring to an item in the UI. Regular sentence case if not referring to a UI item.	Do: Current situation (in UI) Click Current situation. The current situation in the country…
Style names (e.g., Brand Black, Text XL Bold)	Title case
System objects Collection Period Correction Data Collection Data Point/s Data Series Dataset Domain Group Label Permission Shapefiles User Visualization	Title case	Do: User should always refer to a specific object in the interface and therefore be capitalized. Don’t: Use “user” as a generic term (e.g., the user will) in documentation.
Platforms FDE, FDW, KB, EWX, FEWS Tools, LEX etc.	Title case, spell out acronyms before using (except for FEWS NET)	Do: FEWS NET Data Explorer Knowledge Base
Tags	Tags should be all lower case unless they are using an acronym which should be all caps.
Visualization titles and subtitles	Visualization titles and subtitles should be in sentence case.
Visualization types (e.g., Acute Food Insecurity Map, Exchange Rate Chart)	Treat the same as dashboards. When referring to a specific visualization type, use title case, including the type of visualization at the end (e.g., chart, map).	Do: Exchange Rate Chart The map shown here… Don’t: Acute Food Insecurity map Exchange rate chart The Map shown here…
Other Administration As-is Analysis Assumptions Data Email Entry Filter Home page Management News articles Offline Outlooks Processing Report/s Report items Supporting documents Supporting evidence Uploads	Sentence case	These are additional words that were specifically considered and were determined to fall within the normal capitalization rules stated at the top of the page.