Academic Subjects
Academic subjects or disciplines should be written in lower case, except for languages or ethnicities, which are capitalized.
- She is taking courses in mathematics and psychology, but her major is English.
- The geography class took a field trip as part of its research.
- He took an introductory Spanish course and a linguistics course.
- York is one of the few universities in Canada to offer Jewish studies.
If you are writing about a specific department using the official name, capitalize the name of the department or research centre and use the full title for the first reference. On second and subsequent references, use the short version of the proper name also capitalized or the common noun element lower cased.
- The Department of Sociology received nine significant grants. It was the highest number ever presented to the Sociology Department within a single semester. Additional department information can be found on their Web site.
If, when using the common noun element, e.g. "department" or "centre", and other departments or centres are mentioned leading to possible confusion, capitalize the initial letter.
- The Centre for Refugee Studies draws scholars from around the world. The Centre is one of 21 research centres at York University.
- The Department of Psychology is one of the largest in the Faculty of Arts. The department includes cognitive, behavioural and linguistic psychologists.
See the Capitalizing Academic Subjects and Department and Admin. Units sections for more information.