The basics of English capitalization rules get covered early in language learning and are built upon over time because there are so many.
Some capitalization conventions come fairly intuitively because we use them frequently—for instance, the capital letter at the beginning of a sentence.
Other capitalization rules can be more confounding, especially in situations we encounter less frequently.
For professional writers and marketers, some capitalization rules may vary, depending on what editorial style guide their organization or client follows.
Learn about capitalization in English grammar and best practices for capitalizing names, places, and titles properly.
Then, conveniently review your text to make sure you are capitalizing correctly with the Originality.ai Grammar Checker.
Anyone who has received a text message in ALL CAPS knows that capitalization draws a reader’s attention.
When used correctly and according to the rules of grammar, a capital letter is a signal to a reader and places emphasis on a word for a reason.
Capitalization of a sentence’s first word is a foundational rule of grammar. Whether it is a noun, adjective, or verb, the first letter of a sentence is capitalized.
Examples:
Do not capitalize the first word after a colon in a sentence. Unless a proper noun follows the colon, there is no need to capitalize the first word.
Examples:
A capital letter is used to indicate that a noun is proper and specific rather than common. Here is a quick refresher on those grammar terms:
It’s easy to remember to capitalize the names of people, as we are taught to capitalize our own names when we start to write.
In addition to names, other categories of proper nouns are always capitalized.
The formal names of specific places and their languages are always capitalized, no matter where they appear in a sentence.
Examples:
Note that in the examples above these common nouns above are not capitalized, even when they appear next to the proper noun: language, food, countries, continent, city, coffee, landmark, and planet.
Similarly, the specific and proper names of streets, rivers, mountain ranges, monuments, religions, and deities are also capitalized.
Regions of a country are capitalized. However, the points on a compass are not.
The distinction here is that when referring to the name for a specific geographical region, capitalize the name. When referring to general compass directions, do not capitalize.
Examples:
It can sometimes be tricky to know whether a part of a city is a proper, widely recognized name or simply a compass direction, consult the dictionary or style guide used by your organization.
Names of companies are proper names, so each word in the company name begins with a capital letter.
Examples of company names:
Examples of trademarks:
When a name begins with a lowercase letter, like iPhone, it can be tricky to know how to handle this at the beginning of a sentence.
So, in certain instances like with ‘iPhone’ the most common practice is to maintain the company’s preferred format, in which case, if ‘iPhone’ is at the beginning of the sentence it may begin with a lowercase letter.
Always refer to your organization’s style guide to confirm.
When a professional title or rank precedes a person’s name, it is capitalized because it refers to that specific person.
If the title or rank does not precede a person’s name, it is usually lowercase.
Examples:
Similarly, the title for family members is capitalized when it directly precedes a name but not when it doesn’t precede a name.
Examples:
Specific historical eras and events are capitalized. General time periods, such as centuries and decades, are not capitalized. The names of important historical documents are also capitalized.
Examples:
The proper names of specific historical documents are capitalized. Words that refer to general, unspecific documents are not.
Examples:
The days of the week, months of the year, and specific holidays are always capitalized; the names of the seasons are not.
Examples:
The first letter of every word in the titles of publications and works of art is capitalized.
Examples:
Other treatments for a title’s appearance, such as whether it appears in italics or quotation marks, may vary depending on what editorial style guide your organization follows.
Some abbreviations are always capitalized. For example:
In many cases, capitalization may come naturally to you as you write. But there is no doubt that some rules can get tricky depending on what words you encounter in your writing.
Professional writers and marketers should check their organization’s editorial style guide as a reference.
Conveniently review your content with the Originality.ai Grammar Checker to ensure your content is capitalized correctly.
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