Rule for capitalization of geographical areas? Please tell me if
the capitalization of the word "Midwestern" is correct in the
following two sentences: 1.) Study participants were all smokers
chosen from a Midwestern city in the United States. 2.) Study
participants were recruited from six ambulatory care clinics
within a large Midwestern US healthcare system. I had always
thought that geographical areas were to be capitalized, but just
lost points on a paper for doing so. Is there a rule for this?
Thank you for your time, Re: Rule for capitalization of
geographical areas? the Midwest <place; proper noun> a
midwestern city <direction; adjective> a Midwestern city <proper
name, applies to only one geographical entity> Here's what the
University of Colorado's online Style Guide has to say:
Geographical and Related Terms Geographical terms commonly
accepted as proper names are capitalized. Other descriptive or
identifying geographical terms that either do not apply to only
one geographical entity or are not rega