1.12 Parts of a book or document

Capitalize, but do not abbreviate, parts of a document when followed by a number or letter, e.g. Part 4, Table 14, Appendix C.

Smaller subdivisions such as paragraph, line, page and verse are also written in full but are not capitalized except in main headings. See 4.30 Parts of a book or document for further treatment of these points.

In footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies and indexes, words referring to parts of a publication should, in the interest of conciseness, be abbreviated:

• abr.
  • abridged
    abridgment
• bk., bks.
  • book(s)
• bull.
  • bulletin
• c., ch.
  • chapter(s)
• ed., eds.
  • edition(s)
    editor(s)
• fig.
  • figure
• fwd.
  • foreword
• jour.
  • journal
• mag.
  • magazine
• pt., pts.
  • part(s)
• ser.
  • series
• supp.
  • supplement
• vol., vols.
  • volume(s)

4.30 Parts of a book or document

(a) Capitalize references to specific parts of a document. These include certain common nouns in the singular when they are used in text references with numbers or letters indicating place, position or major division in a sequence. Capitalize a letter following such a term:

• Act II
• Appendix B
• Chapter 3
• Chart 2
• Corollary 1
• Exhibit A
• Figure 7
• Plate 4
• Scene iii
• Table 3
• Theorem 3
• Volume 13

(b) Do not capitalize minor subdivisions such as page, note, line, paragraph and verse:

• See page 6, line 48.

(c) Do not capitalize section when used for part of a law or set of regulations, but capitalize it if it refers to a large subdivision of a report, book or other document:

• under section 23 of the Act
• Volume 10, Section 5

(d) Do not capitalize words referring to parts of a book when they are used in a general sense, are preceded by modifiers, or are in plural forms:

• The theory will be discussed in the next chapter.
• The appendixes outline other migration patterns.
• Even Miller’s extensive bibliography is not complete.

(e) Capitalize cross-references within a book when they refer to a particular section:

• Further readings are listed in the Bibliography.
• See the Appendix for urban statistics.

(f) Informal references to chapter and topic titles may be capitalized and written without italics or quotation marks:

His topics included Northern Travel, Survival on the Road, and Basic Maintenance.

See also 1.12 Parts of a book or document.

5.22 Reference numbers

Page numbers are usually written in Arabic numerals, but in prefatory material they may be written as lower-case Roman numerals:

• page vii of the Foreword
• page 7 of the Introduction

Within the body of the text, volume numbers may be indicated by Arabic or Roman numerals or be spelled out. Numbers of chapters and other major divisions of a book may be spelled out, but are more often written in Roman or Arabic numerals—the tendency being away from Roman numerals in the case of both chapter and volume numbers. Verse numbers and those of minor divisions of a book are written as Arabic numerals:

• I Kings 9:1–4
• Volume 18, Section 8

Paragraphs may be numbered 1, 2, . . . ; clauses within paragraphs, 1),  2), . . . . Groups of paragraphs may be numbered with Roman numerals. In citations from legislation and the like, numbers and letters designating parts of a section should be enclosed in parentheses, with no space between them:

• section 123(4)(b)(ii)

See also 4.30 Parts of a book or document.

© Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2013
TERMIUM Plus^®, the Government of Canada's terminology and linguistic data bank
Writing Tools – The Canadian Style
A product of the Translation Bureau