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Basic Grammar Skills

Lesson 3: Punctuation and Capitalization

Capitalization

In this section, you will learn about the rules of capitalization.

To begin your study of capitalization, you must remember the first rule. You capitalize the first letter of each sentence no mater where it is.

Here's an example: Christy said, "Will you go to the movies with me?"

Will is also capitalized because it is the first word of the sentence in the dialogue.

Now, let's look at the rules for Proper and Common Nouns.

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are nouns that name a specific person, place, or thing. These nouns are always capitalized. For example, names of people, cities, towns, states, buildings, etc.

Washington, California, Mrs. Smith, Topeka, The Empire State Building. All of these name a specific person or place.

Common Nouns

Common nouns are nouns that do not name a specific person, place or thing. They are nouns like basketball, football, girl, boy, dog, cat, etc.

Exercises

Go through these words and capitalize the words that need to be. Keep this exercise for your reference.

1. dog

2. president bush

3. english

4. cat

5. tom smith

6. spanish

7. new york

8. mt everest

9. computer

10. freelance writer Now, let's look at the other words that require capital letters: organizations, schools, businesses, titles, nationalities, and races.

Organizations

Names of organizations are always capitalized.

For example, The Elks Club, National Honor Society, Who's Who, etc.

Schools

Names of schools such as: The University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Washburn University, etc. are always capitalized.

Business

Names of businesses are always capitalized.

State Farm Insurance, Ford Motor Company, etc.

Nationalities

Spanish, Chinese, Indian,

Religious Names, Denominations, and Movements

Christianity, Mormonism, Methodism, etc.