TO CAPITALIZE OR NOT TO CAPITALIZE Modern writers capitalize less frequently than did earlier writers, and informal writing permits less capitalization than formal writing. Capitalize the pronoun I and the interjection O. How long must I wait, O Lord? Don’t capitalize the interjection oh unless it is the first word of a sentence. Oh how we enjoyed the party, but oh how we paid for our fun later. Capitalize proper nouns, their derivatives and abbreviations, and common nouns used as proper nouns. 1. Specific persons, races, nationalities, languages. Rita Mae Browne Negroid English Charles Mongoloid French Sally  Caucasian Spanish 2. Specific places. Dallas Newfoundland California Iran Lake Erie Ohio River 3. Specific organizations, historical events, and documents.    Daughters of the American Revolution        The French Revolution 4. Days of the week, months, holidays, and holy days. Thursday November Christmas Sunday January Labor Day Friday May Easter Monday October Hanukkah 5. Religious terms with sacred significance. the Virgin     Allah    Holy Ghost    Jehovah     the Torah 6. Titles of books, plays, magazines, newspapers, journals, articles, poems. Capitalize the first word and all others except articles, and conjunctions and prepositions of fewer than five letters. Gone with the Wind  The Country Wife Pippa Passes Paradise Lost  Atlantic Monthly  War and Peace 7. Titles, when they precede a proper noun. Such titles are an essential part of the name and are regularly capitalized. Titles aren’t capitalized when they follow the name. Professor Wilson  Secretary Dole  Associate Dean G.P. Bass Dr. Natalie Spence  Mr. Rothstein  Vice Chairman Rossi 8. Common nouns used as an essential part of a proper noun. These are generic names such as street, river, avenue, lake, county, ocean, college. Vine Street   Fifth Avenue   Pacific Ocean   Lake Huron But when the generic term is used in the plural, it isn’t usually capitalized. Vine and Mulberry streets the Atlantic and Pacific oceans Avoid unnecessary capitalization. 1. Capitalize north, east, south, west only when they come at the beginning of a sentence or refer to specific geographical locations. Birds fly south in the winter. She lives in the western part of the Old South. 2. The names of seasons need not be capitalized. fall     autumn    winter    midwinter    spring    summer 3. Capitalize nouns indicating family relationships only when they are used as names or titles or in combination with proper names. Do not capitalize mother and father when they are preceded by possessive adjectives. I telephoned my mother. I telephoned Mother. 4. Ordinarily, don’t capitalize common nouns and adjectives used in place of proper nouns and adjectives. I went to high school in Cleveland. WRITING TIPS | GRAMMAR | MARKETING | TRAVEL WRITING | COPYRIGHTS | FREELANCE TIPS   The contents of this site © 2001-2008 Bob Brooke Communications Go back to Writing at Its Best Site design and development by BBC Web Services.