Grammar question

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

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Joined
17 Feb 2006
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Winchester
So I am writing a letter report to a university who is my client - University of Winchester, and making recommendations to them.

Ignore the title, and address, etc, where I write their name in full.

In the main text, where I write "the university may choose to...", should the U in university be capitalised or not?

A reference/source would be useful please.

I change my mind all the time when I write such reports, so I'd like to know for sure finally. Usually it's for a school, university, etc.
 
Based on no factual accuracy whatsoever I would tend to use a capital when referring to the specific university and not when talking about universities in general terms. On that basis in your example I would capitalise it.
 
The word university should only be capitalised if it is used after a town/city name, ie you would say Nottingham University of the University of Nottingham, but if you were just saying to someone I was in Nottingham last week and visited the university you wouldnt put a capital U.
 
In the context of the OP I would capitalise even though it isn't grammatically correct, as it is becoming far more commonplace, especially so in business language. In doing so he would be referring to the University as a proper noun and identifying it as a specific entity rather than just applicable to any university.

Perhaps the more correct answer is to look at how the client identifies themselves. In this case, I found that they do indeed use University: https://winchester.ac.uk/news-and-e...cure-green-finance-for-campus-development.php
 
The_Abyss said:
In the context of the OP I would capitalise even though it isn't grammatically correct, as it is becoming far more commonplace, especially so in business language. In doing so he would be referring to the University as a proper noun and identifying it as a specific entity rather than just applicable to any university.

Perhaps the more correct answer is to look at how the client identifies themselves. In this case, I found that they do indeed use University: https://winchester.ac.uk/news-and-e...cure-green-finance-for-campus-development.php
Click to expand...

That was exactly my query, and referring to their own website is a great idea. I'll stick to how they refer to themselves (including future clients). Thank you.
 
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