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When do we Use Capital
Letters?
1. Use a capital letter for the personal pronoun " I "
What can I say?
2. Use a capital letter to begin a sentence or to begin speech:
The man arrived. He sat down.
Suddenly Mary asked, "Do you love me?"
3. Use capital letters for many abbreviations and acronyms:
G.M.T. or GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
N.A.T.O. or NATO or
Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
4. Use a capital letter for days of the week, months
of the year, holidays:
Monday, Tuesday
January, February
Christmas
Armistice Day
5. Use a capital letter for countries, languages &
nationalities, religions:
China, France
Japanese, English
Christianity, Buddhism
6. Use a capital letter for people's names and titles:
Anthony, Ram, William Shakespeare
Professor Jones, Dr Smith
Captain Kirk, King Henry VII
4. Use a capital letter for days of the week, months of the year, holidays:
- Monday, Tuesday
- January, February
- Christmas
- Armistice Day
5. Use a capital letter for countries, languages & nationalities, religions:
- China, France
- Japanese, English
- Christianity, Buddhism
6. Use a capital letter for people's names and titles:
- Anthony, Ram, William Shakespeare
- Professor Jones, Dr Smith
- Captain Kirk, King Henry VIII
7. Use a capital letter for trade-marks and names of
companies and other organizations:
- Pepsi Cola, Walkman
- Microsoft Corporation, Toyota
- the United Nations, the Red Cross
8. Use a capital letter for places and monuments:
- London, Paris, the Latin Quarter
- Buckingham Palace, the White House
- Oxford Street, Fifth Avenue
- Jupiter, Mars, Sirius
- Asia, the Middle East, the North Pole
9. Use a capital letter for names of vehicles like
ships, trains and spacecraft:
- the Titanic
- the Orient Express, the Flying Scotsman
- Challenger 2, the Enterprise
10. Use a capital letter for titles of books, poems,
songs, plays, films
- War And Peace
- If, Futility
- Like a Virgin
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Lion King, Gone With The Wind
11. Use capital letters (sometimes!) for headings,
titles of articles, books etc, and newspaper headlines:
- HOW TO WIN AT POKER
- Chapter 2: CLINTON'S EARLY LIFE
- LIFE FOUND ON MARS!
- MAN BITES DOG
10. Use a capital letter for titles of books, poems,
songs, plays, films
- War And Peace
- If, Futility
- Like a Virgin
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Lion King, Gone With The Wind
11. Use capital letters (sometimes!) for headings,
titles of articles, books etc, and newspaper
headlines:
- HOW TO WIN AT POKER
- Chapter 2: CLINTON'S EARLY LIFE
- LIFE FOUND ON MARS!
- MAN BITES DOG
Period (.)
- Use a period at the end of a declarative sentence
(a sentence which states an idea).
"That was a wonderful movie."
- Use a period to end an abbreviation.
"I think that Mr. Williams is a great teacher."
Question Mark (?)
- Use a question mark at the end
of an interrogative sentence (a
sentence which asks a question).
"Did you like that movie?"
Comma (,)
- Use a comma to separate three or more items in
a series."My history class meets each Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday."
- Use a comma to separate independent clauses in
a sentence."We wanted to go to the beach, but it
rained that day."
- Use a comma after introductory words or phrases
in a sentence."Certainly, I have my homework right
here."
Semicolon (;)
- Use a semicolon when two independent clauses in
a sentence are not separated by a conjunction
such as "and").
"I like pizza; Carlos also likes pizza"
- Use a semicolon between
independent clauses in
a sentence that are separated by any of the
following transitional words or phrases: accordingly,
consequently, for example, for instance, furthermore,
however, instead, moreover,
nevertheless,
otherwise, and therefore.
"I planned to study Saturday morning; however, the
power in our house went out due to a storm."
- Use a semicolon when the items in a series of
items contain commas.
"I have lived in Los Angeles, California; Boston,
Massachusetts; Trenton, New Jersey; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
Apostrophe (')
- Use an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter or
letters in a contraction.
"I don't think she will win the election."
- Use an apostrophe plus the letter "s" to show
possession.
"Please take good care of Brad's dog."
Use punctuation marks to make the meaning of
what you write as clear as possible.
Dash and Hyphen
A hyphen is used to join two or more words
together into a compound term and is not separated
by spaces. For example, part-time, back-to-back,
well-known.
A dash is used to separate words into statements.
There are two common types of dashes: en dash and
em dash
Brackets, braces and parentheses are symbols used
to contain words that are a further explanation or are
considered a group.
Parentheses ( ( ) ) are curved notations used to
contain further
thoughts or qualifying remarks.
However, parentheses can be replaced by
commas
without changing the meaning in most cases.
- John and Jane (who were actually half brother
- and sister) both have red hair.
Parentheses ( ( ) ) are curved notations used to
contain further
thoughts or qualifying remarks.
However, parentheses can be replaced by commas
without changing the meaning in most cases.
- John and Jane (who were actually half brother
- and sister) both have red hair.
Brackets are the squared off notations ([ ]) used
for technical explanations or to clarify meaning.
If you remove the information in the brackets, the
sentence will still make sense.
- He [Mr. Jones] was the last person seen at the house.
Braces ({ }) are used to contain two or more lines
of text or listed
items to show that they are
considered as a unit. They are not
commonplace in
most writing, but can be seen in computer
programming to
show what should be contained
within the same lines. They can also be
used in
mathematical expressions. For example,
2{1+[23-3]}=x
