Using Capital Letters
Correctly
Capitalize the first word in every
sentence.
Examples
My dog knows several tricks. Does yours?

The first word of a directly quoted sentence should begin with a capital letter.
Example
Mrs. Hernandez said, “Don’t forget to bring your contributions for the bake
sale.”

Traditionally, the first word of every line of poetry begins with a capital letter.
Example
In the night
The rain comes down.
Yonder at the edge of the earth
There is a sound like cracking,
There is a sound like falling.
Down yonder it goes on slowly rumbling.
It goes on shaking.
Capitalize the first word in both the
salutation and the closing of a
letter
Salutations
Dear Service Manager:
Dear Emily,
Closings
Sincerely,
Yours truly,
Capitalize the pronoun I
Example This week I have to write two
essays.
My friend and I will be attending
the book fair.
Capitalize proper nouns
A proper noun names a particular/specific
person, place, thing, or idea.
 Proper nouns are capitalized.
 A common noun names a kind or type of
person, place, thing, or idea.
 Common nouns are generally not
capitalized unless it begins a sentence or
is part of a title.

Proper Nouns
Common Nouns
Central High School
high school
Saturday
day
Rigoberta Menchu
woman
Cambodia
country
USS Nautilus
submarine
Smokey
bear

Some proper nouns consist of more than one word. In
these names, short words such as prepositions (those
fewer than 5 letters) and articles (a, an, the) are
generally NOT capitalized.
Example
House of Representatives
Ivan the Terrible

Capitalize the names of persons and animals
Persons
Animals
Monica Sone
Aaron Neville
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Shamu
Socks
Tigger
Rikki-tikki-tavi

Capitalize geographical names.
Type of Name
Examples
Continents
Europe
Antarctica
Countries
Australia
Egypt
El Salvador Saudi Arabia
Cities, Towns
Miami
Los Angeles
Indianapolis
Manila
States
Tennessee
Rhode Island
Delaware
Wyoming
South America
Asia
(continued)
Type of Name
Examples
Islands
Aleutian Islands
Crete
Long Island
Isle of Pines
Bodies of Water
Amazon River
Chesapeake Bay
Suez Canal
Lake Ontario
Jackson’s Pond
Indian Ocean
Other Geographical Names
Mayon Volcano
Painted Desert
Sinai Peninsula
Meteor Crater
Streets, Highways
Main Street
Eighth Avenue
Canary Lane
Highway 71
*NOTE: In a hyphenated street number, the second part of the number is
NOT capitalized.
EXAMPLE
West Thirty-fourth Street
Type of Name Examples
Sherwood Forest
Parks and
Brechtel Park
Forests
Everglades National Park
Mountains
Catskills
Mount Fuji
Mount Everest
the Alps
Regions
the Middle East
New England
the West
Southern Hemisphere
Corn Belt
the Southeast
*Note: Words such as east, west, northern, southerly are NOT capitalized
when the words merely indicate direction. HOWEVER, they ARE capitalized
when they name a particular region.
EXAMPLES
A car was going south on Oak Street. [direction]
The South has produced some of America’s great writers.
[region of the country]

Capitalize names of organizations, teams,
institutions, and government bodies.
Type of Name Examples
Organizations
Clark Drama Club
Modern Language Association
Junior League
Teams
Boston Celtics
Dallas Cowboys
Institutions
Westside Regional Hospital
Roosevelt Junior High School
Government
Bodies
United Nations
Peace Corps
Los Angeles Dodgers
Hutto Hippos
Congress
York City Council

Capitalize the names of historical events and
periods, special events, calendar items, and
holidays.
Type of Name
Examples
Historical Events
and Periods
Revolutionary War
United States Bicentennial
Holocaust
Special Events
Texas State Fair
Special Olympics
Super Bowl
Festival of States
Calendar Items
and Holidays
Monday
Memorial Day
February
Thanksgiving Day
Bronze Age
Age of Reason
*NOTE: Do not capitalize the name of a season unless it is part of a proper
name.
EXAMPLES
the winter holidays
the Quebec Winter Carnival

Capitalize the names of nationalities,
races, and peoples.
EXAMPLES
Mexican
Nigerian
African American
Iroquois

Capitalize the names of businesses and the
brand names of business products.
Type of Name Examples
Businesses
Sears Roebuck and Co.
Fields Department Store
Thirfty Dry Cleaners
First National Bank
Business
Products
Schwinn Mesa
Apple Macintosh
GMC Jimmy
Callaway Big Bertha
*NOTE: Names of types of products are not capitalized.
EXAMPLES Schwinn bicycle, Apple computer, Callaway golf
club

Capitalize the names of ships, trains, aircraft,
and spacecraft.
Type of Name Examples
Queen Elizabeth 2
Ships
Trains
City of New Orleans
Aircraft
Memphis Belle
Spacecraft
Voyager 2
Kon Tiki
Silver Meteor
Spruce Goose
Sputnik

Capitalize the names of buildings and other structures.
EXAMPLES
Sydney Opera House, St. Louis
Cathedral, Aswan Dam, Eiffel Tower,
Brooklyn Bridge
*NOTE: Do not capitalize such words such as hotel, theater, or high school
unless they are part of the name of a particular building or institution.
EXAMPLES
Capital Theater
a theater
Lane Hotel
the hotel
Taft High School
the high school

Capitalize the names of monuments, memorials,
and awards.
Type of Name
Examples
Monuments
Great Sphinx
Washington Monument
Navajo National Monument
Memorials
Lincoln Memorial
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
the Coronado Memorial
Awards
Emmy Award
Nobel Prize
Congressional Medal of Honor
Pulitzer Prize

Capitalize the names of religions and their followers, holy days
and celebrations, sacred writings, and specific deities.
Type of Name Examples
Judaism
Religions and
Hinduism
Followers
Holy Days and Easter
All Saints’ Day
Celebrations
Sacred Writings Koran
Specific Deities
Christian
Muslim
Yom Kippur
Christmas Eve
Bible
Dead Sea Scrolls
Upanishads
God
Allah
Jehovah
Krishna
*NOTE: The words god and goddess are not capitalized when they refer to a deity of
ancient mythology. However, the names of specific gods and goddesses are not
capitalized.
EXAMPLES
The king of the Norse gods was Odin.
Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare.

Capitalize the names of planets, stars,
constellations, and other heavenly bodies.
Type of Name
Examples
Planets
Mercury
Venus
Stars
Rigel
Proxima Centauri
Constellations
Ursa Major
Andromeda
Other Heavenly
Bodies
Milky Way
Comet Kohoutek
Capitalize proper adjectives.

A proper adjective is formed from a proper noun
and is capitalized.
Proper Noun
Greece
Mars
Darwin
Japan
Proper Adjective
Greek theater
Martian moons
Darwinian theory
Japanese tea ceremony

Do not capitalize the names of school
subjects, except course names followed by
numerals and names of language classes.
EXAMPLES
history, typing, algebra, English,
Spanish, Latin, History 101, Music III,
Art Appreciation I
Capitalize titles.
Capitalize the title of a person when the title comes
before a name.
EXAMPLES
President Lincoln
Mrs. Oliver Wendell

Mayor Bradley

Generally, a title that is used alone or following a person’s name is not
capitalized, especially if the title is preceded by a or the.
EXAMPLES

Commissioner Rodriguez
The secretary of defense held a news conference.
Lien Fong, our class secretary, read the minutes.
However, a title used by itself in direct address is usually capitalized.
EXAMPLES
Is it very serious, Doctor?
How do you do, Sir?

Capitalize a word showing a family relationship
when the word is used before or in place of a
person’s name.
EXAMPLES

We expect Uncle Fred and Aunt Helen soon.
Both Mom and Dad work at the hospital.
However, do not capitalize a word showing a family relationship
when possessive comes before the word.
EXAMPLE
We asked Pedro’s mother and his aunt Celia
to be chaperons.
Capitalize the first and last words and all
important words in titles and subtitles.
Unimportant words in titles include




articles (a, an, the)
coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or,
so, yet)
prepositions of fewer than five letters (such as
by, for, on, with)
Type of Name
Examples
Books
The Mask of Apollo
Long Claws: An Arctic Adventure
Chapters and Other Parts of Books
“The Circulatory System”
“Epilogue”
Magazines
Seventeen
Newspapers
The Tennessean
the Boston Globe
Poems
“Season at the Shore”
“Birches”
Short stories
“The Purloined Letter”
“Broken Chain”
Plays
A Doll’s House
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Movies and Videos
The Wizard of Oz
Babe
Television Series
Home Improvement
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Sports Illustrated
Cartoons and Comic Strips
Audiotapes and CDs
Scooby Doo
Cathy
Jump Start
Butterfly
Falling into You
Computer Games and Video
Games
Sonic the Hedgehog
SimCity
Works of Art
Mona Lisa
David
Mankind’s Struggle
Musical Composition
The Marriage of Figaro
“America the Beautiful”
Historical Documents
Treaty of Paris
The Declaration of Independence
*NOTE: The article the at the beginning of a title is not capitalized unless
it is the first word of the official title.
EXAMPLES
My father reads The Wall Street Journal.
Does she work for the Texas Review?