From
Real Good Grammar, Too
by Mamie Webb Hixon
Created by April Turner
Revised by Mamie Webb Hixon
June 30,2010
1
To capitalize or not to . . .
 When Amazon launched its Kindle book reader,
Oprah announced on NBC that this e-reader is one of
her favorite things.
 CAPITALIZE trademarks/product names: Kindle
 CAPITALIZE corporations: Amazon
 CAPITALIZE certain initialisms/abbreviations: NBC
 CAPITALIZE people’s names: Oprah
2
3
DO NOT CAPITALIZE
 The first letter of some trademark/product names
eBay
eLearning
iPhone and iPad
 Music genres
jazz
hip-hop
rock ‘n roll music
 Ideologies
capitalism
socialism
existentialism
4
DO NOT CAPITALIZE
 Names that have no association with their origin
sandwich
pasteurization
leotards
 Slang names
dork
geek
 Common religious terms
a priest
holy
• Types of transportation
planes and boats and trains
5
DO NOT CAPITALIZE
 Seasons
winter, spring, summer, or fall
 Compass directions
north by northwest
west of the Mississippi
 Majors or disciplines
special education
social work
 Professional titles or occupational descriptions
math teacher
lawyer
bank teller
actor Kevin Bacon
former astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison
the sheriff
6
DO NOT CAPITALIZE
 Academic classifications
freshman year
senior
 Common nouns used in place of proper nouns
a junior college
the interstate
 General events
a civil war
a proclamation
 General names of organizations, agencies, and offices
an insurance agency
a social security check
7
DO NOT CAPITALIZE
 Common nouns
hurricane
a large city
 Names of animals
bald eagle
mockingbird
 Academic degrees
a doctorate
bachelor’s degree
 Military titles
retired admiral
a U.S. marine
8
Which words have capitalization errors?
 retired admiral David Brewer, U.S. navy
 Sex And The City
 Marketing Communications department
9
CAPITALIZATION
 (NOTE: The list below includes but is not limited






to proper nouns that should be capitalized; when
in doubt, consult a dictionary.)
Words in a title except articles, prepositions, and
conjunctions
 The Wizard of Oz
 Sex and the City
Professional titles preceding or following names
 Doctor Frank Jones
Titles with rank
 Chief Petty Officer Kumwaltz
 Retired Admiral David Brewer, U.S. Navy
Specific departments
 Foreign Languages Department
 Marketing Communications Department
Divisions of the military
Army, Air Force, Navy
10
 Which words have capitalization errors?
 english skills
 MBA degree
 Master’s degree
 west of the Mississippi
 on the west coast
 The Gulf Coast
11
CAPITALIZATION
 Geographical areas
 West Coast
 The South
 Names of businesses
and institutions
 First National Bank
 Languages
 Korean
 English
 Courses followed by a
number
 English Composition 101
 Names of specific degrees
Bachelor of Arts degree
BUT
bachelor’s degree
master’s degree
 Specific rather than
generic course titles
 Western Civilization
 Philosophy of Love
 history
 philosophy
12
 Which words have capitalization errors?
 Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants, and Atheists
 the league of women voters
 blacks, whites, and latinos
13
 Which words have capitalization errors?
 Summer vacation
 Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn
 Google apps
 Waiting to Exhale
 Gone With The Wind
14
CAPITALIZATION
 Religions, churches,
denominations
 Catholicism
 Organizations
 Boys and Girls Club
 League of Women Voters
 Historical events, periods
 the Harlem Renaissance
 Familial terms such as mother
and father if they are not
preceded by a possessive word
 Aunt Judy is my favorite aunt.
 Races, nationalities
 Mexican-American
 African-American
 Businesses
 AT&T
 Sears
 Do NOT capitalize
 Neologistic or other
terms used to refer to
races and nationalities



whites
Blacks (usage is divided)
a native American
15
CAPITALIZATION
 Calendar names and events
 Independence Day
 Trademarks
 eBay
 Personal names and
 iPhone
nicknames
 Michael “Air” Jordan
 Ships, trains, planes
 Air Force One
 Abbreviations
acronyms and initials
 AA, NRA
 BlackBerry
 Wi Fi
 Seasons
accompanying
event names
 Spring Festival
 summer vacation
 BUT
 winter, spring,
summer
16
When in doubt about the capitalization
of a word, consult a dictionary.
17
18
ITALICIZATION &
UNDERLINING
 Italicize longer works (for handwritten work, underline):
Books, novels, plays, movies, newspapers, magazines,
paintings, sculptures, ships, trains, TV programs
 A Streetcar Named Desire, The New Yorker, Pensacola News
Journal, The Amazing Race
19
USE QUOTATION MARKS FOR
 Shorter works:
TV episodes, short stories, songs,
poems, chapters in a book, essays,
speeches
 “The Gettysburg Address”
 “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
 “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
 Direct quotations:
Place periods and commas inside
closing quotation marks; semicolons
and colons, outside; question marks and
exclamation marks are placed according
to whether the mark accompanies the
sentence or the quotation.
 Cameron exclaimed, “That dog’s barking
was not music to our ears!”
20
21
USE DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS
 TO SET OFF:
Words and expressions that need to be
emphasized or that the writer wants to
call attention to:
Marco is a career student – he has been
enrolled eight years already because he
believes in the mantra “stay in school.”
The celebrity couple are not married to
each other; they have an “LTA,” a “living
together arrangement.”
Both children have cancer, but neither of
them is “out of the woods” yet.
I remember “Mommilies” such as “Things
aren’t always as bad as they seem.”
22
USE DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS
• TO SET OFF:
Words used as words
The report will use the word “aborigine” to
refer only to the primitive tribes now
living in Australia.
• TO SET OFF:
Words used satirically or words that
should not be taken literally
The librarian righteously cleansed the library of
all "dirty literature" such as Catch 22,
Huckleberry Finn, and The Color Purple.
23
USE SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS
 TO QUOTE SOMEONE WHO IS
QUOTING SOMEONE ELSE:
A quotation within another quotation
or a title within a quote
Dr. Feinstein opened his lecture by saying,
“Albert Einstein reminded us that ‘Great
spirits always receive violent opposition
from mediocre minds.’”
The intro to Lit student naively remarked,
“The nurse in Eudora Welty’s short story
‘A Worn Path’ calls the protagonist
Phoenix Jackson ‘aunt,’ so are the two
characters related?”
24
 Place commas and
periods inside closing
quotation marks.
 Place semicolons and
colons outside closing
quotation marks.
 “Do your own thing, an expression
coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is
found in his 1841 edition of “Self
Reliance,” and it is considered a
“philosophical gem.”
 The graffito on a bathroom wall
reads “ESP should be outlawed”;
underneath this quote is “I knew
you’d say that!”
25
 Place question marks
and exclamation
points inside closing
quotation marks when
the quoted material asks
a question or makes an
exclamation.
 My personal anthem is Tina Turner’s
song “What’s Love Got to Do with
It?”
 The captain shouted, “Halt!”
26
 Place question marks
and exclamation
points outside closing
quotation marks when
the sentence, not the
quoted material, asks a
question or makes an
exclamation.
 Which philosopher said, “I think;
therefore, I am”?
 (René Descartes)
 I know that “misery loves company,”
but please save us from his “misery”!
27
HYPHENATION
 Words with a fixed hyphen
(use a dictionary)
 Compound modifiers
preceding a noun: a threehour movie
 Words beginning with the
prefixes self-, all-, and
well-: self-evident, allencompassing, wellintended
 Prefixes before a proper
noun: pro-American
28
HYPHENATION
 Fractions used as modifiers: one-third voter
turnout
 Numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine
 Multiword adjectives: out-of-state checks
 Some compound nouns: mother-in-law
29
LET’S PRACTICE!!!
 Eighty year old actress Betty White said that “Facebook” is
a waste of time.

Eighty-year-old actress Betty White said that Facebook is a waste
of time.
 The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck’s greatest novel.
 The Grapes of Wrath…
 My Aunt attends the local Junior College.
 My aunt…junior college
 Beth said that “Tony is a teacher’s pet.”
 No quotation marks
 UWF boasts a low student teacher ratio.
 …student-teacher…
30
LET’S PRACTICE A LITTLE MORE!!!
 Joe Smith is a member of the I have a dream
foundation.
 …I Have a Dream Foundation
 Doesn’t everyone love Elvis’s song called Jailhouse
Rock?
 …“Jailhouse Rock”?
 Her paper is extremely well written.
 …well-written
 Jessie has never read Much Ado About Nothing,
but she did watch the movie.
 …Much Ado About Nothing…
31