Words for the titles and ranks of people are lowercased when they are used in a general sense or refer to the position held rather than the person. They are capitalised when they are used directly before a name, as a form of address or as a substitute for the name of the holder of the title. When titles are used in apposition to a name, they do not form part of the name and are, therefore, lowercased. Likewise, titles used to refer to a position, not a particular person, are also lowercased. The general guideline is that if the title or rank is a reference to a specific person and the person’s name could be used instead without affecting factual or grammatical accuracy, then a capital letter should be used.
 |
In 2011, Rector Ferré was re-elected for a second four-year term of office. |
|
Only last week, Rector, you stated that there would be no further cuts in the departmental budget. |
|
Last week the Rector gave a speech to the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce. |
|
The principal academic and administrative officer of a university in this country is the rector. |
|
Dr Ferré was elected rector for the first time in the year 2007 and re-elected four years later. |
|
Dr Ferré, rector of the University, was first elected in 2007. |
In titles that are hyphenated compounds it used to be standard practice to capitalise only the first part of the compound. Nowadays, however, the tendency is to capitalise both parts.
|
The Vice-Rector for Academic Policy described the new reforms to the Governing Council. |
|
The vice-rector for academic policy is responsible for making large-scale changes to degree programmes. |
The title is lowercased in the second example above because it is a reference to the position of vice-rector, not to a particular person.