Q. We have a difference of opinion in my company about the capitalization of defined terms in policy and procedure documents. One group would like to capitalize all defined terms, for example, “All Statements must be mailed on the 3rd of the month.” This is similar to legal documents and would separate the Statement as a specific item from a nondefined version of a statement. The other group feels this is distracting and does not add to comprehension. What does the Oracle of Style say?
A. Form a committee! Chicago, you may know, is famously partial to lowercasing, but there’s no right answer, so just hammer this out among you, put it in your house style guide, and move on.