Capitalization

Most writers have difficulty knowing when to use a capital letter and when not to. Because Chinese characters do not have upper case and lower case, or capital letters and small letters, it is a real challenge to know how capitalization works in English writing. Most writers get mixed up when it comes to professional titles and proper nouns, which are the names of official organizations. For example, we do not capitalize the generic term "doctor", but we do if it is a person we are referring to whose professional title is Dr. Bob Rose. Let's review the rules of capitalization.

• Begin the first word in each sentence with a capital letter.
• Begin the names of people, pets, and the word "I" with a capital letter.
• Begin the names of days, months, and holidays with capital letters.
• Begin the official names of places with capital letters. (Rosemere High School, Paris, Missippi River)
• Titles of respect such as Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss should begin with capital letters. Notice that abbreviations, like Mr., need to be followed by a period.
• Each initial in a name is a capital letter and is followed by a period. (Alice B.Ready)
• Begin a title of respect, when used as part of a person's name, with a capital letter. (Captain Kirk, Judge Boyd, Reverend Knowlton, Doctor Smith) Many times titles of respect are abbreviations. (Doctor is abbreviated as Dr., Reverend is abbreviated as Rev., Mister is abbreviated as Mr.)
• Begin abbreviations that are part of a name with a capital letter. (Mission Road - Mission Rd.; Doctor Powell - Dr. Powell; Saint Patrick - St. Patrick; Sammy Davis, Junior - Sammy Davis, Jr.)
• Begin the words of the greeting and the closing in a letter with capital letters. (Dear Joe; Respectfully Yours)
• Begin the first word and all important words in the title of a book or story with capital letters.
  Do not capitalize words such as a, an, and, at, by, for, in, of, the, under, and with, unless they are the first word in the title. (The River of Time)
• Capitalize the important words of official organizations and departments. On the other hand, do not capitalize generic words, like "department" when they stand alone. (Ministry of Education, Department of Applied Foreign Languages, our department)