Capitalization Guidelines

Time Labels

• Days of the week: Sunday, Monday
• Months: September, October
• Special days and holidays: Memorial Day, Valentine's Day
• Special and historical events: Civil War, Battle of the Bulge, Ravalli County Fair, Eighteenth Centruy, Medieval Period, Age of Reason

Geographical Labels

• Highways and byways: streets, roads, highways
• Places to go: village, town, city, region, countries
  * Regions: the West, the Southwest, the Middle East
  Note: Do not capitalize north, south, east and west when used only to show direction.
  Example: We vacationed in eastern Montana.
• Islands: Hawaiian Islands
• Bodies of water: Red Sea, Deer Creek, Gulf of Mexico
• Mountains: Rocky Mountains, Mount Baldy
• Other geographical features: Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Angel Falls, Lambert Glacier
• Parks: Lassen National Park, Yellowstone National Park

Names with Titles - and Titles of books, magazines

• Proper names: Capitalize all names which refer to an individual whether it is a nickname, first name or surname: Happy, Tom, Smith.
  Also, capitalize the names of ships, plains, trains or proper named "things".
• Title for people: Capitalize all title which precede the person's name: Mr. Jones, Reverend Hansen, Dr. Thomas, Uncle Harry
• Special regard: Capitalize any title showing special regard when used in place of the person' name: Mom, Dad, Doctor, BJ, Grumpy
  Note: Do no capitalize mother and father when they are preceded by personal pronouns: my mother, our doctor, your uncle.
• Degrees or rank: Capitalize titles, such as degrees or rank, following the person's name: Ph.d., MD., DDS., Jr.
• High government officials: Capitalize the following titles of high government officials regardless of where they are of State: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Senator, Ambassador
• Titles of books, magazines, paintings, movies etc.: Capitalize the first and last and all other words - EXCEPT: conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or), article adjectives (a, an, the), prepositions (four letters or less: at, by, in, like, of, off, with, etc.)

Proper nouns and adjectives:

• Business, organizations & institutions: St. Patrick's Hospital, Allstate Insurance
  Note: When capitalizing a business product, only capitalize the brand name and not the product name such as Crest toothpaste, Durall cement, Eddie's bread.

Special groups:

• Nationalities: American, Spanish, English
  Note: Language classes are always capitalized according to this rule, BUT other courses, such as history, biology, physical education, etc., are not capitalized unless they are the official course titles: World Geography, United States History
• Races: American Indian, Caucasian, Asian
• Religions: Methodist, Catholic, Taoism, Christian, Buddhism, Muslim
  Note: Capitalize God only when it refers to the Christian God; also capitalize all nouns and personal pronouns when they refer to God.

Other Examples:

• First word in sentence: He was late as usual.
• First word in quotation: He said, "You should join us."
• First word in each subdivision in outline.
• Salutation and closing in letter: Dear Sir, Yours truly.
  Note: Notice only the first word in the closing is capitalized.
• Capitalize the pronoun I and the letter o when it is used as an interjection or address.

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Comma Rules are provided by Mr. Archer, a high school, English teacher at Florence-Carlton school.

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