Names and titles
Guidance on the use of names and titles.
General titles
Use capitals for titles prefixing names, but not for job descriptions. Note that some job descriptions are never used with names, such as ‘prime minister’.
DO Although being president of the country is stressful, President Smith was glad to be re-elected.
Give people’s title, forename and surname when first mentioned. On subsequent mentions, use either surname only or title and surname (unless further information is required to prevent ambiguity), but be consistent with whichever usage you choose.
DO Dr John Smith was present at the ceremony, as was Professor Susan Jones. Dr Smith had to leave early.
DO Dr John Smith and Professor Susan Jones presented their research paper to a large audience. The results will be published in book form, which Smith says will be available in the spring.
DON’T Dr John Smith and Professor Susan Jones debated the topic. Smith recently reviewed Professor Jones’s book.
Note that it can be helpful to your readers to clarify the pronouns of people if it is unclear (e.g. if they have a name given to men and women, such as Alex, or a name less familiar to readers in the UK).
Oxford-specific titles
Use capitals when referring to the specific person holding a specific position and to their work in this role, but not when referring to any holder of that role unless it is a statutory position (see Capitalisation and Word Usage sections for further information).
DO Irene Tracey became Vice-Chancellor in 2023.
DO There are several Pro-Vice-Chancellors without portfolio.
DO The Registrar will always have to attend these meetings.
DO Wadham’s Head of House, Lord Macdonald, attended the event. Other heads of house were not invited.
DO I wonder who the Senior Proctor will be next year...
DO Candidates will be required to undertake practical work, as specified by the Head of the Department of Experimental Psychology.
DO Recruiting new academic staff is vital to all departments; heads of department often personally oversee the procedure.
DO The Vice-Chancellor-elect will be admitted to office in January
Statutory Professors
A statutory professorship is one which is listed in the University’s Statutes and Regulations. Other professorships are personal or titular. A list of all statutory professorships is published as the Annexe to Council Regulations 3 of 2004.
Associate Professors
The job title of associate professor was introduced in 2014. Associate professors may, if they wish, use the title of ‘Professor’, or they may keep their previous title of ‘Dr’. In either case their job title remains Associate Professor of [Subject].
DO Dr John Smith is Associate Professor of Astronomy.
DO Professor Julia Jones is Associate Professor of Politics.
DON’T The lecture was given by Associate Professor Smith.
Other titles
Highlighting/emphasising text
Bold
Use bold sparingly to emphasise the part of your text you wish to stand out. This could be someone’s name, a deadline date or another key piece of information.
Punctuation which follows bold text should not itself be bold (unless the whole sentence is in bold type).
If you are transcribing a speech, you might want to use bold text (or italic text) to emphasise words in writing on which the speaker placed particular emphasis in speech.
DO The Man Booker Prize for 2012 was awarded to Hilary Mantel; this was the second time that she has won.
DO The deadline for submissions is noon on 2 April and any applications received later than this will not be considered.
Italics
Use italics to flag part of your text which is different from that surrounding it.
Titles of books, journals, plays, films, musical works etc should be given in italics if they are a complete published work; if you are referring to an individual short story, song, article etc within a larger publication, use single quotation marks (see also Quotation marks under Punctuation).
DO I, Robot contains nine short stories, of which ‘Little Lost Robot’ is my favourite.
DO ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis, from the album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, is the best-selling single not to top the UK singles chart.
If the title includes ‘The’ or ‘A’ as the start of the title, italicise that as well.
DO A Tale of Two Cities has perhaps the most famous opening sentence in English literature.
Use italics for foreign words and phrases embedded within your text, including species and genera names in Latin.
DO There are nine ex officio members of Council.
DO When producing its annual report, the committee shall consider, inter alia, any relevant HEFCE evaluations.
DO A seven-sisters rose bush (Rosa multiflora) can be either white or pink.
DO Dante tells us that above the entrance to the Inferno is inscribed Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate.
Plurals, past tenses or other grammatical changes to italicised titles or phrases should only be italicised up to the end of the title or phrase – do not italicise the s, ed etc – and punctuation should only be italicised if it is part of the title, quote etc. Note that it is not always easy to tell whether a full stop/comma is in italic.
DO The remaining Gazettes of Michaelmas term are published on 22 and 29 November and 6 December.
Underlining
Avoid using underlining for emphasis; this generally suggests hyperlinks, especially on webpages. If underlining is required for purposes such as flagging changes, make sure it’s clearly explained in the preamble (eg ‘New text underlined, deleted text struck through’).