ALL CAPS VS. UPPER/lower CASE by Rolf Miller Correspondence is occasionally seen typed in all caps. In fact, several variously named fonts substitute smaller upper case letters in place of the normal lower case characters. When those who use all upper case letters are asked why the preference, the answer usually reflects the idea that it's easier to read. Those who read for a living disagree with them. Publications that accept manuscripts for consideration have editors who read submissions. However, these publications have Writer's Guidelines detailing form. Material that does not follow those guidelines is rejected forthwith. One of the requirements invariably found in Writer's Guidelines is: use normal fonts, preferably Pica, though Elite is acceptable. Also undesirable is dot-matrix printing. Material submitted using script or other unorthodox fonts, and all upper case letters are rejected. The reason given is readability. A study of the evolution of writing finds that the development of lower case letters is rather recent. Upper case characters used to be the norm. And it's thought that readability is what prompted creation of the lower case alphabet. Simply, it is easier for the eye to recognize words using lower case characters. While letters are distinguished by their shape, a look at the upper case alphabet sees that all letters fill the same vertical space. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ THUS, WORDS TYPED IN UPPER CASE POSSESS NO DISTINCTION AS VIEWED ON THE VERTICAL PLANE. CONSEQUENTLY, IN DECIPHERING WORDS TYPED IN CAPS, THE EYE IS LIMITED TO THE SHAPE OF THE INDIVIDUAL LETTERS. A look at the lower case alphabet sees that all characters do not occupy the same vertical space. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz As a result, words typed in lower case not only possess distinctive characters, but the varying vertical dimensions often gives words a look all their own. Consequently, in addition to the shape of characters, the eye also learns to recognize the distinctive appearance of lower case words. (From Civic 64/128, August 1999, via the Commodore Information Center http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)