General Rules for Capitalization Capitalize all of the following:

 Proper nouns (names of people, places, and things) Don Hudson, Hunan Restaurant, Eiffel
Tower

 Names of cities, states, provinces, and countries Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

 Names of specific oceans, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc.

Pacific Ocean, Santa Fe River, Pyrenees Mountains, Lake Ontario

 Brand names
Ford, Kleenex tissues, Sunbeam toaster

 the pronoun I

 Days of the week, months, specific courses in school

Friday, March, Anthropology 2022

 All important words of a title (books, plays, songs, magazines, and newspapers)

Capitalize a, an, the only if they are first word of title, and prepositions of five or more letters;
don't underline the in newspaper titles
Call of the Wild, The Glass Menagerie, "You Are My Sunshine," the Washington Post

 The first word of a quotation and the first word of a sentence James said, "Nobody will ever
believe you."

 Names of nationalities, languages, and races

Many Eskimos live in Alaska. Anita is Greek, but she also speaks Russian.

 North, south, east, west ONLY if it indicates a geographical region and NOT a direction;
usually preceded by THE

Nancy loves the climate of the Northwest. The Civic Center lies south of town.

 Names of holidays

Easter, Memorial Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving

 With abbreviations, titles, streets

I have an appointment with Dr. Lindsay today. Manuel lives at 5120 Clover Rd.

Specific historical documents, political organizations The Constitution is the basis of our legal
system.
Do not capitalize the following:

 seasons unless they are part of a title

I like summer best of all. The Long Hot Summer was a great movie.

 general areas of study except languages mathematics, history, geography

 when personal titles are NOT followed by a name aunt, uncle, doctor, professor

 school, college, or university unless it is accompanied by a proper name

General Rules for Punctuation

 use in a series of three or more entities

Jim swims, golfs, and fishes in the summer.

 use to separate two main clauses joined by and, but, for, nor, yet, or, so Harold took the day
off, and he is planning on resting.

 use between city and state and after state if in the middle of a sentence
Before moving to Denver, Colorado, the Chapmans lived in Buffalo, New York.

 use with dates between day and year and after year in the middle of a sentence We will
graduate on June 6, 1990.
It wasn't until March 15, 1987, that Harvey got his license.

 use after introductory expressions beginning with because, since, while, until, if, despite, in
spite of, etc.

If it does not rain this weekend, we can go to the beach.

Because of the traffic jam, we arrived an hour late.

 use before not and but to show contrast

I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

 use before or after a direct address (calling someone by name)

Nell, are you ready yet?

Have you finished your project, Sam?

 use with appositives [words or phrases that mean the same as the word(s) that come
before them]
George Washington, our first president, was unanimously elected in 1789.

 use to set off titles such as M.A., Ph.D., Sr., Jr., Inc.
Colin B. Thornton, Jr., not his father, is president of the bank. Joyce Byrd, Ph.D., is Director of
the English language Institute

 use to set off participial phrases

Hurrying as fast as he could, Marcel caught the bus before it pulled away.

 use to set off direct quotations (using someone's exact words) Pam said, "My cousin is
studying engineering at MIT."

 use with addresses written in sentence form

Send all inquiries to National Business Computers, 1576 Magnolia Dr., East Lansing, Michigan
12450.

 use to set off yes and no in answering a question

No, we are not planning on going to the mountains this spring. Yes, I received your request for
the merchandise.

QUOTATION MARKS (" ")

 use when quoting someone's exact words. Periods and commas always come inside the quote
marks.

Phil said, "The American Revolution began in April, 1775."

"All of us will attend the banquet," said the chairperson.

 **Be careful where you place question marks and exclamation points in quotations. If the
punctuation is part of the quotation, it goes inside the quote marks.
The coach asked, "Has anyone seen the quarterback?"
Tim yelled, "The building is on fire! Get out!"

 Whereas, if the quote is not a question nor an exclamation, then the punctuation goes outside
the quotation marks.

Are you surprised that the director said, "Take the day off'”?

Stop playing "The Flight of the Bumble Bee"!

 use with names of short poems and magazine articles, essays

John Keats wrote "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

 use with foreign words as yet not accepted as regular usage words in English

Not all bullfighters perform on the ground. The "rejoneadores" fight on horseback.
  Do not use quotation marks around titles of your own essays.

 Do not use quotation marks around indirect speech (paraphrasing what someone has said) that
is introduced by the word that.

Helen said that she would arrive at noon.

(These are not Helen's exact words.)

 **NOTE: When you use a quote within a quote, you need single quotes (') for the inside

quotation and double quotes (") for the outside quotation. Mr. Markham said in his lecture,
"Robert Burns was a great Scottish poet who wrote, 'Never a lender nor a borrower be.'"

 use to indicate plurals with letters and certain expressions Sal received 4 A’s and 2 B’s on his
report card.

 Always dot your i's and cross your t's

 Think of the do's and don'ts before you begin any project.

UNDERLINING



Although underlining is not technically a form of punctuation, it is important to know when to use it.
Good writing depends on the ability to use all forms correctly.

use with titles of books, magazines, newspapers, long poems, works of art, movies, plays, operas, and
names of sea and aircraft

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. Hemingway's book, The Sun Also Rises, is
about bull fighting. The Titanic sank over sixty years ago.
The Pietà is one of Michelangelo's greatest sculptures.

**NOTE: When writing the title of a newspaper that includes the in the title, do not underline the word
the.

the New York Times, the Orlando Sentinel

Period (.)

  use at the end of a declarative statement We have only one class tomorrow.
  use after abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Mon., oz., a.m., st. (first), St. (street), etc.
Acronyms (abbreviations pronounced as words) are not punctuated. SEATO, NATO, UNESCO,
sonar
The cook needs one oz. of honey for the recipe.
   use to separate dollars and cents in prices This coat costs $59.95.
  use with certain abbreviations such as B.C., A.D., D.C. The Congress meets in Washington.
D.C.
  use with decimals and percents
Judy earned a 3.75 GPA last semester.
The interest rate on our mortgage is 7.825%.
  do not add a second period if you end a sentence with a title or abbreviation that requires a
period

My brother's new title is Dr. Joseph Laws, Ph.D.

  do not use a period with ordinal numbers or shortened forms such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd,

4th and words like math, photo, lab

We will be attending the wedding on May 1st in Ohio.

QUESTION MARK (?)

  use at the end of an interrogative statement

Do you know where the Metropolitan Art Museum is?
  use with dates when the exact year is not known
Attila (406? -453), King of the Huns, was called "the Scourge of God" because of his cruelty.

Exclamation Point (!)

 use after a statement of surprise

Harry won the million-dollar lottery!

Colon (:)

  use between hours and minutes of time expressions The train is due at 6:45.
  use after the salutation in a formal letter Dear Sir: Gentlemen: Dear Mrs. Greene:
  use before mentioning a list of items or people if the word preceding the colon is not a verb or
preposition

Only five people attended the meeting: John, Paul, Sean, Nick, and Toby.

Semicolon (;)

  use when joining two complete, related sentences not connected by and, but, or, nor, for, yet or
so.

Phyllis received the highest grades; she got a scholarship to study at Harvard.

  use with the conjunctive adverbs consequently, however, otherwise,

nevertheless, and therefore when they connect two main clauses. The adverb is preceded by a
semicolon and followed by a comma.
 Sid could not pay the light bill; therefore, the company shut off his electricity.

  use with parenthetical expressions (those which serve to qualify) in fact, on the

other hand, for example, etc.

Mario never eats spinach; in fact, he hates it. .

  use to separate unlike entities in a list (combination of cities and their states) The language
schools can be found in the following locations:
Kalamazoo, Michigan; Austin, Texas; and Honolulu, Hawaii.