46. Typeface, Capitalization, and Punctuation

46.1 Give typography a stable meaning

Our default italicizes case names and substantive work titles in prose and citations. This includes books, articles, reports, named manuals, and named standalone digital publications. Keep reporter identifiers, source-assigned numbers, provision labels, dates, and ordinary explanatory text in roman type. Italicize citation signals and immediate-reference words. Use bold for navigational headings or deliberately added emphasis, with quotation-edit disclosure when required.

This system lets the reader distinguish names and titles from locators without relying on small capitals or specialized fonts. A receiving publication may require other typography. Apply that requirement consistently while preserving the same identity fields. Never let a font conversion erase a meaningful symbol, superscript, or source-assigned character.

Fictional training form. “Noor Hale, Managing Archive Intake 41–43 (2d ed. 2026).” The author, pages, edition, and year remain roman. “Aster Workshop v. Vale Supply, No. TRAIN-46, slip op. at 7 (North Coast Training Tribunal May 11, 2026)” italicizes the case name but not its identifier. The comma after the case name is roman because it separates citation elements rather than forming part of the name.

46.2 Distinguish official titles from descriptive labels

Preserve the words of a source's displayed title, including meaningful subtitles and numerals. Normalize all-capital display typography into ordinary title capitalization when it does not carry special meaning, but keep the exact original title in the source record. Do not shorten a title by silently removing the words that distinguish an edition, jurisdiction, subject, or document type.

For an author's descriptive label assigned to an untitled item, use roman type and identify it as descriptive when confusion is possible. “Email from Lena Ortiz to Noor Hale (May 12, 2026)” is a description of the item; it does not pretend the email was formally titled that way. If the subject line matters, include the actual subject separately.

Fictional paired example. Displayed title: ARCHIVE INTAKE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE, SECOND EDITION. House citation: “Noor Hale, Archive Intake: A Practical Guide 27 (2d ed. 2026).” The edition moves to its own field rather than disappearing. Untitled checklist: “Harbor Archive Office, intake checklist, item 4 (Jan. 8, 2026) (descriptive label).” Do not italicize an invented title in a manner suggesting it appeared on the original.

46.3 Capitalize names and titles without inventing defined terms

Preserve personal and institutional names as the source identifies them, subject to demonstrated typographical normalization. In titles, capitalize the first and last words and principal words; keep short articles, coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions lowercase unless they begin or end the title. A distinctive author's stylization may be retained when it helps identify the work. Consistency should not erase a meaningful spelling.

In prose, capitalize a formal institutional name but use lowercase for a generic role: “Harbor Archive Office” and later “the office.” Use “the Court” or another capitalized short designation only when a receiving convention requires it or the document has expressly adopted that designation. Our ordinary house prose favors lowercase generic references because capitalization should not imply an undefined special status.

Fictional repair. Source says “a receipt”; draft says “the Receipt,” although no defined term exists. Repair to “the receipt” unless the writer expressly introduces a specific short label for the document. Conversely, if the fictional contract defines “Receipt Notice,” retain that exact defined expression when discussing the contractual term. Do not apply title capitalization mechanically to every noun that seems important.

46.4 Use punctuation to separate identity fields

For a case reference, use a comma after the case name, then the publication or assigned identifier, then the pinpoint, then the court/date parenthetical. For an authored work, use a comma after the author name, followed by the title, locator, and edition/date information. Where a title ends with a question mark or another meaningful mark, preserve it; the surrounding citation punctuation still separates the next field as needed.

For a short titled-work reference, use a comma before “at” and the locator: “Hale, Managing Archive Intake, at 52.” For a full book reference, omit “at” when the page follows the title directly: “Noor Hale, Managing Archive Intake 52 (2d ed. 2026).” This is a house distinction chosen for a readable full reference and an explicit short-form locator. Follow a required alternative if the recipient prescribes one.

Use semicolons between separate sources in a group. Do not use a semicolon to join an author to the author's title. Preserve commas that belong within an institutional or business name until a permitted name-shortening decision is made under chapter 48. A punctuation cleanup should not silently change the legal or documentary identity of a named party.

46.5 Place quotation punctuation without changing the quoted object

For ordinary running prose, our house default places a sentence's comma or period inside the closing quotation mark and places a colon or semicolon outside it. Place a question mark or exclamation point according to its scope: inside when it belongs to the quoted material, outside when it belongs only to the author's surrounding sentence. Preserve meaningful source punctuation when discussing the punctuation itself.

Fictional examples. Source label: Received. Prose: The stamp says “Received.” Source question: Was the packet complete? Prose: The form asks, “Was the packet complete?” Author's question about a label: Did the clerk mark the packet “Received”? The final question mark belongs to the author's question, not to the label.

Use a literal display when exact characters matter. A filename, command, identifier, or data value should not acquire an extra period because prose punctuation normally falls inside quotation marks. Write “The filename is receipt-17.pdf.” The period ends the sentence outside the literal value. The same approach is useful for disputed contract punctuation: display the exact clause separately and explain which marks belong to it.

Do not confuse typographical placement with quotation editing. Moving sentence punctuation under a house convention does not authorize changing a question into an assertion or erasing a source's meaningful qualification.

46.6 Normalize spacing while preserving source-assigned characters

Use one space after sentence punctuation. Place a space between a section or paragraph symbol and its locator: “§ 4” and “¶ 7.” Keep source abbreviations and numerals readable. Use nonbreaking spaces sparingly to prevent a symbol from stranding at a line ending, while ensuring that copied text remains usable.

Retain hyphens in source-assigned identifiers such as TRAIN-46-A. Use an en dash for inclusive ranges that the author constructs, such as 41–43. Do not replace an identifier's hyphen with an en dash merely because two numerals appear on either side. A docket, catalogue, ISBN, version string, or exhibit label is an identifier, not automatically a range.

Fictional repair. Source label BOX-12-14 identifies one archive box. Defective display: BOX–12–14, interpreted as a span. Repair: preserve BOX-12-14 exactly and add a descriptive label if needed: “box BOX-12-14.” For a span of separately numbered boxes, write “boxes 12–14” only if those are the actual supplied locators.

Use typographic quotation marks in final prose if the production system supports them reliably. Keep straight marks in literal code or data where changing the character would change the object being described.

46.7 Keep abbreviations purposeful and reversible

An abbreviation should save effort without making identification uncertain. Use an established source-assigned abbreviation when it is part of the identifier; otherwise prefer full institutional and publication names unless repetition justifies a defined short form. Do not invent a reporter-style abbreviation for a fictional or unfamiliar publication merely to make it look conventional.

Our ordinary prose spells out “section,” “paragraph,” and “chapter” when discussing structure; citations may use “§,” “¶,” “ch.,” and other explicitly defined locator labels. Use “No.” for an assigned document or proceeding number when that description matches the source. Do not attach “No.” to an article's first page or a date because they happen to contain numbers.

For personal initials, preserve the source's spacing and full name in the research record. Do not expand initials from memory. For organizational acronyms, use the introduction and collision rules in section 45.7. A reader should be able to recover the full name from the document without consulting the author's private abbreviation list.

46.8 Review the exported typography as text and as an image

Inspect a representative final page for italic boundaries, missing symbols, broken ranges, awkward line breaks, and nested quotation marks. Then copy a citation from the PDF into plain text and confirm that its name, identifier, locator, and URL remain recognizable. Visual fidelity and usable text are related but different checks.

A font substitution can make a paragraph symbol disappear while leaving surrounding text intact. A line break can split a URL into a misleading copied address. An italic run can accidentally absorb a date or lose half a case name. Correct the source styles or exporter rather than manually touching one output page if the defect affects repeated patterns.

Keep presentation review separate from support review. A clean page does not establish that the source supports its sentence. Conversely, a fully checked source deserves a display that readers can use without struggling through avoidable formatting defects.