GRAMMAR AND CONVENTIONS

10 Rules of Capitalization

Some people may tell you that there are far more than just ten rules of capitalization in English, and with everything that you have to remember, that may be true. Others may say that there are only three rules, and they are also correct. The truth is that depending on how you organize them, the rules of capitalization may be many or few, but in either case, you still have to know what the rules entail. This article will help you remember it all.

Most of the things we capitalize in English are what we call proper nouns. They are the names of specific, unique things. For example, maybe you live in a white house, but you don’t live in the White House (unless, of course, you are the president). In the first case, ‘house’ is just a regular noun. There are millions of houses, even white ones, all over the world, but they don’t have special names. However, the president of the United States lives in a specific house that is named the White House. It’s the only house with that name. It is also a white house because it’s a house that is white.

So, when you are talking about a common thing of which there are many, like a mountain, a state or a street, don’t use a capital letter for those words. If, however, you are talking about one specific mountain (Mt. Fuji), state (Idaho) or street (Atlantic Ave.) that has a name, and if you are using that name, use a capital letter for every word in the name except for the word ‘and,’ articles (a, an, the) and prepositions (of, on, for, in, to, with, etc.).

Ten Rules of Capitalization

What kinds of things do you need to capitalize? Here are the rules: 

1. Names of people

This one may seem obvious, but there’s also a catch. Of course, you capitalize the first letters of a person’s first, middle and last names (John Quincy Adams), but you also capitalize suffixes (Jr., the Great, Princess of Power, etc.) and titles. Titles can be as simple as Mr., Mrs. or Dr., but they also apply to situations wherein you address a person by his or her position as though it’s their first name. For example, when we talk about President Lincoln, we are using his role as though it were a part of his name. We don’t always capitalize the word president. Indeed, we could say, "During the Civil War, President Lincoln was the president of the United States."

2. Names of mountains, mountain ranges, hills and volcanoes

Again, we’re talking about specific places. The word ‘hill’ is not a proper noun, but Gellert Hill is because it’s the name of one specific hill. Use a capital letter to begin each word in the name of a mountain (Mt. Olympus), mountain range (the Appalachians), hill (San Juan Hill) or volcano (Mt. Vesuvius).

3. Names of bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans, seas, streams and creeks)

From here, it gets pretty easy. The same rules that apply to mountain names also apply to water names. A river is just a river, but the Mississippi River is a proper noun and must be capitalized, just like Lake Eerie, the Indian Ocean and the Dead Sea.

4. Names of buildings, monuments, bridges and tunnels

Man-made structures also often have names. The White House, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel are a few good examples.

5. Street names

Capitalize both the actual name part of the name (Capital) and the road part of the name (Boulevard); both are necessary for forming the entire name of the street (Capital Boulevard).

6. Schools, colleges and universities

Harvard University, Wilkesboro Elementary School, Cape Fear Community College

7. Political divisions (continents, regions, countries, states, counties, cities and towns)

As is the case with regions of a country, the divisions may not always be political, but you get the idea. When you refer to New England, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest or the South as a region (as opposed to a compass direction), you capitalize it. Also, continents (South America), countries (Belgium), states (Wisconsin), counties (Prince William County), cities (London) and towns (Lizard Lick) get capitalized.

8. Titles of books, movies, magazines, newspapers, articles, songs, plays and works of art

This one’s a little tricky when ‘and,’ articles or prepositions are involved. If ‘the’ is the first word in the given name of a work, it must be capitalized (The Washington Post, The Glass Menagerie). If ‘a’ or ‘an’ is the first word, it too is capitalized (A Few Good Men), and if a preposition leads the way, you guessed it: Capitalized (Of Mice and Men). However, if any of these words comes in the middle of the title, it is not capitalized.

9. The first letter in a sentence

The last two rules are easy. Always capitalize the first letter of a sentence. If the sentence is a quotation within a larger sentence, capitalize it, but only if it’s a complete sentence. If it’s merely a phrase that fits neatly into the larger sentence, it does not require capitalization. Study the following two examples for clarification:

• The waiter said, “My manager will be here shortly,” but he never came.
• The waiter told us that his manager would “be here shortly,” but he never came.

10. The pronoun I

It’s only necessary to capitalize other pronouns when they begin a sentence, but ‘I’ is always capitalized. 

Remembering the Rules

How can you possibly remember all these rules? Well, first of all, you should ask yourself three questions:

• Is this the first letter in a sentence? If the answer is yes, capitalize.
• Is this the pronoun I? If yes, capitalize.
• Am I using a name that someone gave to this thing or person? If yes, capitalize.

And if you want to remember all the specific categories, try memorizing one of the following sentences.

• “For Bob Barker, the price is sometimes wrong,” mom says.
• Susan Sarandon bought my wife fancy toilet paper in Boston.

The first letter of each word stands for a category:

• F - First letter in a sentence
• B - Buildings (and other man-made structures)
• B - Borders (of regions, states, countries, etc.)
• T - Titles
• P - People
• I - I
• S - Schools
• W - Water
• M - Mountains
• S - Streets

And there you have it. Whether you think of English as having ten rules of capitalization, thirty, or just three, You should now be able to remember them all.

WHEN TO START A NEW PARAGRAPH

The big idea

Learning how to break your stories and essays into paragraphs is a confusing but important job. Nobody ever really sits down to tell you the basic rules about when to make a new paragraph, so you generally have to muddle along, making the rules up for yourself. This is too bad. New paragraphs are important for the reader. They tell when you're switching time, place, topic or speaker, and they help break the page up so it is not just a solid block of writing. Seeing that can be discouraging, and you don't want your reader to be discouraged before she even starts to read.

Before you begin

You don't really have to have anything done before you begin this process. You can break a piece of writing into paragraphs after you've written it, or you can do it as you go. Doing it as you go is the best choice, but you might not be able to do that right off the bat.

How to do it

There are a few standard times to make a new paragraph:

• When you start in on a new topic
• When you skip to a new time
• When you skip to a new place
• When a new person begins to speak
• When you want to produce a dramatic effect

Let's look at them one at a time.

New Topic

This one's mainly for essays. Every time you go on to a new topic, you should make a new paragraph.

New Time

This one--and the rest--are mainly for use in short stories. Whenever you skip some time, that will probably be the right place to make a new paragraph. If you find yourself using phrases or sentences like these, you are skipping some time:

• Later that day,
• The next morning,
• Five hours passed.
• They waited and waited.
• Life in Dullsville remained unchanged.
• The seconds seemed like hours.

New Place

Scenes in stories generally happen in one place. When the characters go to a new place, a new scene happens. At the very least, a new paragraph happens. Any time you have a "Meanwhile, back at..." phrase in your story, make a new paragraph.

New Speaker

If you're doing a good job, your short stories are going to have dialogue, or characters talking to each other. Dialogue helps bring stories to life. Every time you switch speakers, you make a new paragraph. Sometimes this means that your paragraphs are really short, because all a character might say is, "Nope." If that's all he says, though, that is as long as the paragraph needs to be. Another thing to remember is that, if you put the "he said" phrase before the quote, or you character does some action before he speaks, you should make that part of the same paragraph as the quote.

Action That Serves As Part of the Dialogue

A good writer will break long stretches of dialogue up with snatches of action. This is good for the rhythm of the piece. Changing things up makes the conversation flow smoothly, at least from the reader's standpoint. It also helps make a picture in the reader's mind by inserting just the right detail to bring the scene to life. The last reason for using this kind of paragraph break is that people don't always reply with words. Sometimes they shrug or make a face or ignore the other speaker entirely.

Dramatic Effect

Sometimes you simply want a paragraph to stand out, or you want to slow the reader down and control the pace of the story. At times like this, you can make a brief sentence--or even a word--an entire paragraph. Just don't overdo it; this gets old fast.

Here are some examples, excerpted from the novel Kate Macready and the Pirates. They are colorcoded when possible to show which type of paragraph break is being used: yellow for new topic,brown for new time, purple for new place, light blue for new speaker, dark blue for an action that takes the place of some dialogue, and green for dramatic effect.

The one good thing I could see was that the water was so shallow where the Narwhal went down that, once I broke clear of the ship, I didn't have far to go to reach the surface.        It was long enough, though.         By the time I broke the surface, I had almost given up hope, but I found myself in the air and took a huge, gulping gasp. I splashed around, happy just to be alive. That's when the hand reached down and grabbed me.         Before I had a chance to think, I had been hauled into a small boat and dumped there like a load of fish. I opened my eyes and was surprised--and happy--to see Jeremy staring down at me.         "You made it," he said.         I nodded.         "Did you get the map?" he asked.         I sat up, outraged. "Is that all you can think about?" I demanded.         "No. Of course not. But did you get it?"         I pulled the map, now waterlogged, from the folds of my shirt and tossed it to the floor of the boat. Jeremy looked visibly relieved.         "Are you all right?" he asked.         "I--I think so," I said.         "What happened to...uh, to Diablo?"         I shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't see him."         There was a pause.

HOW TO PUNCTUATE DIALOGUE

The big idea

Dialogue--characters talking--is the spice that can make a good story become a "WOW!" story. It brings a story to life. It makes the difference between hearing ABOUT what characters are saying and actually having them say it. It makes everything more immediate.

The Bad News

There are about twelve zillion rules about punctuating dialogue.

The Good News

You can write pretty good dialogue if you're willing to learn and follow just three of those rules.

How to do it

Here are the three rules:

1. Put quotation marks around anything someone ACTUALLY SAYS.
   • "Stop!" screamed Bob.
     • Not "Bob told people to stop."
     • Not "Stop! screamed Bob."
     • Not Stop! "screamed Bob."
   • "Why should I stop?" asked Suzy.
     • Not "Suzy wondered why she should stop."
     • Not "Why should I stop? asked Suzy."
     • Not Why should I stop? "asked Suzy."
2. Make a new paragraph each time you switch speakers.
   • Even if the "he said" phrase comes before the quote.
   • Even if it means that your paragraph is one word long--that's okay in dialogue.
3. Change periods at the ends of quotes to commas IF THE QUOTE IS FOLLOWED BY A "HE SAID" PHRASE.
   • "You're standing on my foot."
     becomes "You're standing on my foot," said Bob.
   • "Geez, I'm sorry."
     becomes "Geez, I'm sorry," said Suzy.
   • "Get off my foot!"
     becomes "Get off my foot!" shrieked Bob.
     (Remember: exclamation marks don't change.)''
   • "Did you say something?"
     becomes "Did you say something?" asked Suzy.
     (Remember: question marks don't change.)