Capitalization by Shonell BaconBy APOOO • Jul 1st, 2009 • Category: The Write Life for You • Email This Post • Print This Post
By author, editor, educator Shōn Bacon aka ChickLitGurrl™
Not only must you have a great story, but you also need to know capitalization rules.
And a whole mess of other things – some already discussed and some to come.
But alas…now, CAPITALIZATION.
What I want to provide you with are a few capitalization rules that are important to remember.
Some of these will sound SO obvious, but having been an editor for the last seven years, I can tell you…writers (including myself) often miss the most obvious of mistakes while rereading and revising their work.
So, without further ado, we should capitalize…
1. The first word of every sentence.
2. The first-person singular pronoun, I.
3. The first, last, and important words in a title. Important words are typically not articles, short prepositions, the “to” of an infinitive, and conjunctions. The title “Death At The Double Inkwell” – correctly capitalized? Nope. “At” is a preposition and “the” is an article; “Death at the Double Inkwell” would be correct.
4. Proper nouns.
Proper nouns represent unique entities (such as Paris, Mars or Calvin); whereas, common nouns describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person).
I went to see my Doctor today.
Did you join the Military?
I used to date him in High School.
I need to talk to my Mother.
She was a Nurse at the Hospital where I gave birth.
See anything wrong with the above bold words? They are capitalized when they don’t have to be.
I see these types of errors a lot in manuscripts I edit. Why should these words be lowercased? Because they are not specific, because they are not unique entities; they are not proper nouns.
Doctor is generic, common; however, Doctor Bacon is not.
The Military is generic, common; however, the U.S. Army is not.
High School is generic, common; however, Catonsville High School is not.
Mother is generic, common, when you are merely referring to her (or an aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, etc.) especially in a possessive way – like my mother or his grandfather; however, if you are calling your mother, naming your mother…Mother, then it’s not generic; it’s a name. For example: When Mother calls me, I pick up, never fail.
Nurse and Hospital are generic, common; however, seeing Nurse Jane at Memorial Hospital is not.
5. Brand names: Pepsi, Coca Cola, Ford.
6. The names of God, specific deities, religious figures, and holy books
God the Father
the Virgin Mary
Exception: Do not capitalize the non-specific use of the word “god.”
7. Titles preceding names, but not titles that follow names
Example: Mayor Darius Connor came to visit our college today.
Example: Darius Connor, mayor of Sunnytown, came to visit our college today.
8. Direction words (north, south, east, and west) should only be capitalized when they refer to a region or section of a country.
The West offers great opportunities for careers in entertainment.
To get to Hammonds Diner, go east four blocks and make a left; it’s on the corner.
Do you have capitalization rules that will benefit other writers? Share them in the comments!
Thanks for checking me out @ The Write Life for You; come back next month – I’ll be talking about Punctuation.
ChickLitGurrl ~ signing out
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