Capitalization

Capitalization means writing in capital or uppercase letters. You have seen that some words begin with a capital letter. But how do we know which words to start with a capital letter? Here are some rules.

 

1. Capitalize the first word of every sentence. My friends are watching a game on television. They are enjoying the game.

 

2. Capitalize the subject pronoun I.  I am not watching the game on television, as I have to finish a lot of work.

 

3. Capitalize proper nouns (proper names). A proper noun is a name given to a person, place, thing, or animal. It can be one word or a group of words. Note that the prepositions, conjunctions, and articles (a, an, and the) are not capitalized, but all other words are capitalized.

Anita Johnson	Google	Dell	Taj Mahal
England	Internet	Coca-Cola	Antarctica
Islamabad	Facebook	Toyota	Himalaya
Washington DC	Jupiter	Honda	Badshahi Mosque
US Congress	Dawn News	Oxford University	The Great Wall of China

 

Google, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, World Wide Web, and so on, are proper names given to computer search engines, networks, or websites.

 

(Capitalization details of sun, moon, earth, and other confusing nouns are; for more information visit our blog. www.engliterature.com

 

4. Also capitalize common nouns such as academy, park, river, college, and so on, when they are part of a proper given name.

KIPS Academy	Chitral Gol National Park	Indus River
British Education and Training Services	Hingol National Park	Kabul River

 

5. Capitalize brand names, as they are proper nouns. Their products such as cars, jeans, bags, chocolate, or milk are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized.

Toyota Cars

Levi's Jeans

Calvin Klein Handbags

Cadbury chocolate

 

6. Some common nouns are also proper names of persons, animals, places, or things. Capitalize when these common nouns are used as proper names.

 

I met my friend, Rose, at the library. (Rose is a proper noun of a woman.)

 

I have a beautiful rose in my garden. (Rose is a common noun to show a type of flower.)

 

I am visiting the Apple store today. (Apple is a proper noun of an electronics company.)

 

I put an apple in your lunch box. (Apple is a common noun to show a type of fruit.)

 

 

7. Capitalize all days of the week, all months, all holidays, and festivals.

Sunday	January	Independence day	Eidul Miladunabi	Ramadan
Monday	February	23rd March	Eidul Ezha	Eidul Fitr

 

Do not capitalize the names of seasons:

fall (autumn), winter, spring, summer, and monsoon; 

The heavy rains in South Asia from June to October are also called the rainy season or monsoon.

 

8. Proper adjectives are made from proper nouns, so capitalize proper adjectives.

Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, French, Spanish, Indonesian

 

9. Also capitalize names of nationalities, races, languages, religions, and communities.

Nationalities	Races	Languages	Religions	Communities
Pakistani	Hispanic	English	Islam	Muslims
American	Asian	Urdu	Christianity	Christians
Egyptian	African	French	Hinduism	Hindus
Malaysian	Caucasian	Arabic	Buddhism	Buddhists

 

10. Capitalize titles when they appear before a person’s name.

 

11. An initial is the first letter of a name used in a person’s full name. Always capitalize initials used in names and place a period and a space after them.

 

Prof. S.M Ahmad, D.H Lawrence and Magistrate L.M Adam

 

12. Note the difference in greetings of a friendly and formal letter.

Friendly Letter Greeting	Formal Letter Greeting
Capitalize the first word and the proper noun Dear Shireen. Dear Friends. Dear brother and sisters	Capitalize all words in the Greeting Dear Mr Johnson: Dear Students: Dear Sir:

 

13. To close any letter, capitalize only the first word.

Yours sincerely, Sincerely yours, Warm regards and Best wishes

 

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