Is the capitalization and my use of an apostrophe okay in the following sentence?:
I am a part-time college student seeking my Master's degree in Early Childhood Education.
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2Looks good to me, except the "greengrocer's apostrophe" in comma's. Anyway, the sentence does not contain a comma. I would change "seeking my Master's..." to "reading a Master's..."– Weather VaneCommented Jan 8, 2018 at 19:58
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There are no commas in your sentence, only apostrophes, with which you properly formed a possessive with Master's but improperly a plural of coma, which is commas, not comma's.– KarlGCommented Jan 8, 2018 at 20:07
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2@WeatherVane: "reading a Master's" is exclusively a UK expression.– KarlGCommented Jan 8, 2018 at 20:08
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1@KarlG I think it's more accurately a Commonwealth expression, but it is very confusing to American readers.– Azor Ahai -him-Commented Jan 8, 2018 at 20:46
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3I don't think this is opinion based: english.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11105/…– Azor Ahai -him-Commented Jan 14, 2018 at 2:24
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2 Answers
So this varies a lot more than I realized when I originally posted.
Here I'll try to explain what I think isn't so opinion-based, and also point out what can be.
Here's what can be said for sure.
- Your use of an apostrophe is correct inasmuch as it's not "masters degree." I don't think anyone disputes that.
- The field is not capitalized unless it is already a proper noun, like "English" or "Japanese."
- That is, unless you're referring to the full, proper, name of your degree, in which case, the whole thing is capitalized.
Last year at the University of X, 16 students graduated with a Master of Arts in Early Childhood Education.
- If you are using the full name of the degree, there is no genitive 's. For example, see the Wikipedia page on British degree abbreviations, which has a huge list of bachelor's and master's degrees, none of which have an 's.
However, if you don't want to use the proper name of your degree (it's pretty stuffy, after all), you have options on how to abbreviate it.
The 2014 AP Stylebook says:
Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration ... A master's degree or a master's is acceptable in any reference.
and also
academic degrees ... Use an apostrophe in bachelor's degree, a master's etc., but there is no possessive in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science.
On the other hand, University College London says ("//" added for clarity):
USE // DO NOT USE
Master’s degree // masters Degree
first-class Bachelor's degree // First Class Honours Degree
So if you went to UCL you could say "my Master's degree in early childhood education," but if you went to Western Michigan University, you would say "my master's degree ...." Furthermore, capitalized "Bachelor's" and "Master's" strikes me as very British but I don't have anything to back that up.
But, if you don't want to change the phrasing of your statement, you may optionally upper- or lower-case "master's" but shouldn't capitalize "Early Childhood Education."
answered Jan 8, 2018 at 20:06
From my perspective, it looks right (using in). Just like saying "I have a Master's degree in Mathematics".
