Capitalizing scientific and technical terms

The same general rule that applies to ordinary language applies to scientific or technical writing: Capitalize proper nouns or adjectives but not common terms.

Spiderweb Galaxy

Saturn

Beta Centauri

Mesozoic Era

Crohn’s disease

Here are examples of common terms that are lower case:

small-world geometry

network optimization theory

second law of thermodynamics

chronic fatigue syndrome

peripheral arteriosclerosis

Scientists capitalize (and italicize) the Latin names of plants and animals, generally the first word (genus) of the two-part term: Canis lupus (gray wolf), Canis latrans (coyote). When the genus name is used alone, it is capitalized (Canis, Pinus).

Exercises:

Capitalization 1

Capitalization 2

Related topic:

Abbreviations for scientific terms