Capitalization Rules

Capitalization Rules Write Source Textbook Pgs. 676-685

Proper Nouns & Adjectives • Capitalize all proper nounsand proper adjectives. • A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, thing, or idea. A proper adjective is an adjective formed from a proper noun. • See examples on p.676 (676.1)

Names of People • Capitalize the names of people and also the initials or abbreviations that stand for those names. • See examples on p.676 (676.2)

Titles Used with Names • Capitalize titles used with names of persons; also capitalize abbreviations standing for those titles. • See examples on p.676 (676.3)

Words Used as Names • Capitalize words such as mother, father, aunt, and uncle when these words are used as names. • Ex. Uncle Wade plays golf. Aunt Cathy is funny. • Words such as aunt, uncle, mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa are usually not capitalized if they come after a possessive pronoun (my, his, our). • See examples on p.676 (676.4)

School Subjects • Capitalize the name of a specific educational course, but not the name of a general subject. (Exception—the names of all languages are proper nouns and are always capitalized: Spanish, English, Latin, German) • See examples on p. 678 (678.1)

Official Names • Capitalize the names of businesses and the official names of their products. (These are called trade names.) Do not, however, capitalize a general word like “toothpaste” when it follows the trade name. • See examples on p.678 (678.2)

Races, Languages, Nationalities, Religions • Capitalize the names of languages, races, nationalities, and religions, as well as the proper adjectives formed from them. • See examples on p.678 (678.3)

Days, Months, Holidays • Capitalize the names of days of the week, months of the year, and special holidays. • See examples on p.678 (678.4) • Do not capitalize the names of seasons. (winter, spring, summer, fall/autumn)

Historical Events • Capitalize the names of historical events, documents, and periods of time. • See examples on p.678 (678.5)

Geographic Names • Capitalize the following geographic names: • Planets & heavenly bodies (Lowercase the word “earth” except when used as the proper name of our planet.) • Continents, countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, bodies of water, landforms, public areas, roads and highways, buildings, monuments • See examples on p.680 (680.1)

Particular Sections of the Country • Capitalize words that indicate particular sections of the country. Also capitalize proper adjectives formed from the names of specific sections of a country. • See examples on p.680 (680.2) • Words that simply indicate a direction are not capitalized, nor are the adjectives that are formed from them.

First Words • Capitalize the first word of every sentence and the first word in a direct quotation. • See examples on p.682 (682.1) • Do not capitalize the first word in an indirect quotation.

Titles • Capitalize the first word of a title, the last word, and every word in between except articles (a, an, the), short prepositions, & coordinating conjunctions. • Follow this rule for titles of books, newspapers, magazines, poems, plays, songs, articles, movies, works of art, pictures, stories, and essays. • See examples on p.682 (682.2)

Abbreviations • Capitalize abbreviations of titles and organizations. • See examples on p.684 (684.1)

Organizations • Capitalize the name of an organization, an association, or a team. • See examples on p.684 (684.1)

Letters • Capitalize the letters used to indicate form or shape. • Ex. T-shirt, U-turn, A-frame, T-ball • See examples on p.684 (684.3)

Capitalization Rules