Capitalization Rules 1-21

Capitalization Rule 16

1st letter of 1st word of a quotation--Frosty requested, "Go get the snow shovel please."

Capitalization Rule 20

1st letter of the 1st word of a greeting and a closing (Dearest friend, Sincerely yours).

Capitalization Rule 17

Brand names, but not the products (Carnello chocolates; an Apple computer; PayLess pencils).

Capitalization Rule 10

Businesses.

Capitalization Rule 7

Capitalize Mom and Dad if you can substitute Mom's and Dad's name and have the sentence still make sense; don't capitalize if there is a possessive pronoun, such as his, their, or my, in front of mom or dad. Capitalize a person's title, such as Senator Jones, Father Bill, Mayor Smith, President Obama, Governor Kitzhaber, Rev. Smith, Monsignor Huneger.

Capitalization Rule 5

Capitalize a person's name and initials.

Capitalization Rule 6

Capitalize days of the week, months of the year, special holidays.

Capitalization Rule 1

Capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence.

Capitalization Rule 3

Capitalize the first letter of the first word in most lines of poetry.

Capitalization Rule 4

Capitalize the first word in a title, the last word in a title, all important words, all verbs, all prepositions of five or more letters.

Capitalization Rule 8

Capitalize the names of nonprofit organizations, such as American Red Cross, Humane Society.

Capitalization Rule 2

Capitalize the pronoun "I."

Capitalization Rule 12

Geographic locations (seas, oceans, rivers, towns, villages, countries...).

Capitalization Rule 13

Historical documents.

Capitalization Rule 11

Human-made structures that needed heavy machinery and workers in hard hats.

Capitalization Rule 9

Institutions.

Capitalization Rule 15

Outlines (Lead Roman numerals, alphabet letters, and first letter of first word).

Capitalization Rule 14

Proper adjectives for foreign countries (American, French, Spanish, Danish...).

Capitalization Rule 19

Proper adjectives, but not the nouns they modify (a Californian beach, a Mojave sunset, a Memorial Day parade.

Capitalization Rule 21

Regions of the world when replacing whole sections of the world or a country (the Midwest, the Middle East).

Capitalization Rule 18

Religions, religious documents, churches, Supreme Being.