Capitalization

Capitalization works along with punctuation to indicate the beginning of a new sentence. It also indicates that something is a proper noun.

In most schools in the United States, capitalization is taught in the second grade. Although you may not have attended second grade in the United States or, your second grade teacher might have skipped that lesson, most readers will assume that you’ve learned the rules of capitalization. When writers do not adhere to the rules of capitalization it detracts from the quality of their writing. Making sure that everything is properly capitalized will help readers take your writing seriously.

1. Always capitalize the first letter of a new sentence. Notice in the paragraph above that the first letter of each sentence is capitalized.

2. Always capitalize the pronoun I.

I am looking for a summer job so that can save money to put towards tuition in the fall. Even though I‘ll be working I‘m still looking forward to spending some time outside, in the sun.

3. Always capitalize the first letter of a proper noun (a name of something or someone.)   Jason                  Pedro

Alabama              Bangladesh

Kmart                  Disneyland

4. Always capitalize the first letter of the main words in a title, like this:

To Kill a Mockingbird

Malcolm in the Middle

Skip the smaller words like: and, a, an, the, of, and with, unless they are the first word of the title.

Click the links below for more in depth tutorials on proper nouns and capitalization.
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/propernoun.htm
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/592/01/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/1/42/

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