Capitalization and Punctuation

Capitalization and Punctuation

1. General Rulesfor Capitalization

   • Capitalize all of the following: Proper nouns (names of people, places, and things), names of cities, states, provinces, and countries, names of specific oceans, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc., days of the week, months, specific courses in school, all important words of a title (books, plays, songs, magazines, and newspapers), the first word of a quotation and the first word of a sentence, names of nationalities, languages, and races, north, south, east, west ONLY if it indicates a geographical region and NOT adirection, specific historical documents, political organizations
   • Do not capitalize the following: seasons unless they are part of a title, general areas of study except languages, when personal titles are NOT followed by a name, school, college, or university unless it is accompanied by a proper name,
   • EXAMPLES:
     • Don Hudson, Hunan Restaurant, Eiffel Tower
       • Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
         • Pacific Ocean, Santa Fe River, Pyrenees Mountains, lake Ontario
           • Ford, Kleenex tissues, Sunbeam toaster

2. General Rulesfor Punctuation

   • Comma (,)
     • use in a series of three or more entities. Ejm: Jim swims, golfs, and fishes in the summer.
       • use to separate two main clauses joined byand, but, for, nor, yet, or, so. Ejm: Harold took the day off, and he is planning on resting.
         • use between city and state and after state if in the middle of a sentence. Ejm: Before moving to Denver, Colorado, the Chapmans lived in Buffalo, New York.
           • use after introductory expressions beginning withbecause, since, while, until,if, despite, in spite of, etc. Ejm: If it does not rain this weekend, we can go to the beach.Because of the traffic jam, we arrived an hour late.
             • use with appositives [words or phrases that mean the same as the word(s) that comebefore them] Ejm: George Washington, our first president, was unanimously elected in 1789.
               • use to set offyesandnoin answering a questionNo, we are not planning on going to the mountains this spring. Ejm:Yes, I received your request for the merchandise.
   • QUOTATION MARKS (" ")
     • use when quoting someone's exact words. Periods and commas always come insidethe quote marks. Ejm: Phil said, "The American Revolution began in April, 1775.""All of us will attend the banquet," said the chairperson.
       • **Be careful where you place question marks and exclamation points inquotations. If the punctuation is part of the quotation, it goes inside the quote marks.Ejm: The coach asked, "Has anyone seen the quarterback?"Tim yelled, "The building is on fire! Get out!"
         • use with names of short poems and magazine articles, essays. Ejm: John Keats wrote "Ode on a GrecianUrn."
           • Always dot your i's and cross your t's
             • Think of the do's and don'ts before you begin any project.
               • use with foreign words as yet not accepted as regular usage words in English. Ejm: Not all bullfighters perform on the ground. The"rejoneadores"fight on horseback.
   • UNDERLINING
     • Although underlining is not technically a form of punctuation, it is important to knowwhen touse it. Good writing depends on the ability to use all forms correctly.
       • use with titles of books, magazines, newspapers, long poems, works of art, movies,plays, operas, and names of sea and aircraft
   • QUESTION MARK (?)
     • use at the end of an interrogative statement. Do you know where the Metropolitan ArtMuseum is?
   • Period(.)
     • use at the end of a declarative statement. We have only one class tomorrow.
       • use after abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Mon., oz., a.m., st. (first), St. (street), etc. Acronyms (abbreviations pronounced as words) are not punctuated. SEATO, NATO,UNESCO,sonar. The cook needs one oz. of honey for the recipe.
       • use with decimals and percents. Judy earned a 3.75 GPA last semester. The interest rate on our mortgage is 7.825%.
   • Colon(:)
     • use between hours and minutes of time expressions, use after the salutation in a formal letter, use before mentioning a list of items or people if the word preceding the colon isnota verb or preposition
   • Semicolon (;)
     • use when joining two complete, related sentences not connected byand, but, or,nor, for, yetorso, use with parenthetical expressions (those which serve to qualify)in fact, on theother hand, for example, etc,