WRITING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

WRITING ENTIRELY IN BLOCK CAPITAL LETTERS IS SHOUTING, and it’s rude.

In email etiquette, online chats, or forum posts, writing in all capital letters is the online equivalent of shouting or yelling. It’s rude, so best not to do it unless you do want to shout at someone.

Although it’s usually best to avoid writing in capitals, it can be useful to write odd words in capitals to give emphasis. For example, “Make LOVE, not WAR.”

Compare these sentences:

“What are you doing?”

(Capital letter only at the beginning of the sentence. The rest of the words written in lowercase.)

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???”

(The sentence is written in all capital letters and used excessive question marks.)

Seriously, it really hurts my eyes every time I see someone writes entirely in block capital letters. I feel like I’m hatefully yelled at.

Remember, the whole point of writing is to clearly convey a message to your readers. When you write everything in all caps, you miss the point of using capital letters in the first place, which is to emphasize a specific word or phrase.

A block of text in all caps is actually more difficult to read. People (readers) tend to avoid reading text written in all caps because they really don’t like “listening” to shouters; and in the end the message is not received. All-cappers (people who use all capital letters in their writings) fail at this BIG TIME!

So if you want your readers to pay more attention to your writing and if you want your message delivered, do yourself a favor, use lowercase like the rest of us. :)