likely to misinterpret the following in a book about British political life:

He is generally considered to be on the left in these debates

simply because it was not capitalized as

He is generally considered to be on the Left in these debates

Overuse of initial capitals is obtrusive, and can even confuse by suggesting false distinctions.

Capitals are sometimes used for humorous effect in fiction to convey a self-important or childish manner:

Poor Jessica. She has Absolutely No Idea.

Am irresistible Sex Goddess. Hurrah!

## 5.3.2 Formal and informal references

When one is referring back, after the first mention, to a capitalized compound relating to a proper name, the usual practice is to revert to lower case:

Cambridge University | their university  
---|---  
the Ritz Hotel | that hotel  
Lake Tanganyika | the lakecatalogue) numbers may be given in specialist contexts or if helpful in the identification of a rare early work.

Bibliographic abbreviations and contractions used in the notes (e.g. _edn, vol., bk, pt, ch._ ) are generally acceptable in parenthetical citations in text but should be given in full in open text ( _edition, volume, book, part, chapter_ ). Do not capitalize words representing divisions within works ( _chapter, canto, section_ , and so on). Abbreviations used for libraries or archival repositories in notes may be retained in parenthetical citations but should be extended to full forms in open text.

Locations within works can be described in a variety of ways in open text ('in the third chapter of the second book'; 'in chapter 3 of book 2'; 'in book 2,