You must adhere to specific guidelines when writing a paper for a high school class, a college degree, or a career job. Although most learners are sufficiently familiar with these guidelines, concerns may still exist.
Some guidelines are either complex or unknown. For instance, how do you write a company name in a document?
Remember, a strong brand name is crucial to building a solid business brand identity. Therefore, there is a need to represent the brand name correctly when writing a paper.
However, it might be challenging for authors, especially when the name defies accepted English conventions.
This article guides you on how to write a company/business name in an essay. Keep scrolling and acquire this crucial knowledge to help you compose excellent papers.
How to Write a Company Name in an Essay
In APA
Generally, the APA style should be the formatting style to use when discussing topics in the business sphere. Essays relating to business and social sciences are the ones that employ the APA format the most.
Here, there are two approaches you can use in the APA-styled document to reference a company/business. They include:
- Simply Writing the Name
You can use their name when citing the company’s study findings or spokespersons’ statements. For illustration, use “According to NBC…” Writing the complete name of the business in the essay is not essential; however, you may use the full name on the References page or in additional notes.
- Employing Parentheses
You can add the business name in parentheses after the reference. This is if it is a long name or if you wish to include a citation without the “According to/As to/etc.”
In MLA
Usually, it is liberal arts and humanities field essays that employ the Modern Language Association (MLA) style.
You must always use the company’s full name in MLA formatting style unless it is consistently abbreviated, as in the case of IBM. You should also get rid of corporate abbreviations like Inc. and Corp.
Also see: Can the title of an essay be a question?
This is unless you are alluding to a university press, in which case you can use “UP.” For instance, you may put “Princeton UP” instead of “Princeton University Press.”
In Chicago
Newspapers, journals, and mainstream books published commercially follow the Chicago referencing style. However, this formatting style is preferred for writing essays in humanities, business, and the fine arts, especially at the graduate level.
You should write the company name precisely as the business does. However, as long as the structure of the brand name is still easily recognizable, it’s acceptable to make minor formatting adjustments.
In Harvard
Treat the organization as a “corporate author” when referencing in Harvard style. It indicates that you may employ the company’s name rather than a specific author.
This might apply to businesses, institutions, and state agencies. Incorporate them in the references and citations just as you would an individual author.
When citing a company for the first time, use the full name first, then the common acronym in square parentheses. However, when you have to cite corporate numerous times, you can use an acronym or an abbreviation.
You could make multiple references to the same document or cite writings from the same organization from previous years.
Are Company Names Italicized in Essays?
For APA, MLA, Chicago, or AP formatting styles, you should use something other than italics when writing a business name in official writing or a letter.
Business and brand names are not italicized, whether the name is actual or fictitious. You can only employ the italic formatting for the names or titles of magazines, newspapers, publications, albums, etc., but never for company names.
You should capitalize the organization’s name in the same way it appears in the advertisements for the company, for example, “eBay,” “Facebook,’’ or “Pepsi.” Remember, people already know the names of restaurants, businesses, brands, firms, social media networks, etc.
Therefore, there is no need to italicize their names. To recognize the named entity in the context, simply use capital letters.
Are Company Names Capitalized?
Regardless of your writing style, capitalizations are typically treated uniformly unless otherwise specified.
The name of a firm should only be capitalized if it has capital letters that can be pronounced independently, like “IBM.” This is remarkably accurate for the AP style.
Therefore, for a company name like IKEA, you should write it as “Ikea” if the business itself usually capitalizes the entirety of its name. If the company name is GoPro or LinkedIn, on the other hand, duplicate the distinctive capitalization precisely as it is.
Remember, before incorporating a brand name, be sure you follow the rules of the writing style you use. Find the organization’s full face on the internet, then follow the instructions in your APA, MLA, Chicago, or another style handbook.
Should Company Names be in Quotes?
Similar to italicizing company names, for APA, MLA, Chicago, or AP formatting styles, you shouldn’t use quotation marks when writing a business name in any form of official writing.
Therefore, no quotation marks or underlining are used around brand names. Except when the name is included in quotation marks by the brand itself, you should represent them as regular proper nouns.
Chapter titles, magazines and newspaper articles, poetry, and short tales are a few examples of places in a piece where quotation marks are appropriate.
Rarely, but only when quoting a word or phrase previously used by others can quotation marks be employed to emphasize individual words. As a result, neither single nor double quotations should be employed to denote a company’s name.
How Do You Punctuate a Company Name?
Punctuation is increasingly appearing in company names. This is because it is getting harder and harder for new enterprises and brands to come up with distinctive names. Therefore, when referencing brand names in an essay, present their punctuations correctly. Remember, properly punctuating an organization’s name demonstrates respect for the brand.
If an agency or business term contains a legal designation like “Company,” “Limited,” or “Incorporated,” you should abbreviate that part of the name. Place a period after the acronym and avoid using commas before it.
However, when discussing in a non-formal setting something that won’t have an impact on the organization’s operations, avoid using the abbreviated legal name of the entity.
On the first mention, always capitalize the full name of a government entity and never shorten it. Abbreviations and informal names are acceptable for the second reference, though.
Conclusion
This article has comprehensively explored how to write a company/business name in an essay. Remember, it is vital as a writer, whether for an academic or professional paper, to follow the formatting guidelines as best as possible.
Utilize the information above to grow your writing skills and write better papers, especially when they demand mentioning a company or organization.