Write Source Textbook Pgs. 676-685 Capitalization Rules Write Source Textbook Pgs. 676-685 Keep in Spiral, pgs.18-20

Proper Nouns & Adjectives Capitalize all proper nouns and 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 (684.2)

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)