Capitalization Rules and Its Importance in English Writing

Most of the English learners do not pay much attention to capitalization rules.

When it comes to writing English, you must master capitalization rules. To capitalize a word is to write its first letter as a capital one (upper-case letter). To make writing effective one has to know the rules of English capitalization. Without capitalization, the meaning of the sentence might change as well. Therefore, it is good to know the capitalization rules to make your writing as well as reading more effective and meaningful.

There are many rules of capitalization depending on the way we use them. One cannot fix the number of rules for capitalization.

Rule 1

Always capitalize first word of a sentence.
‘She lives in New York City. She is a dance teacher.’

Rule 2

Always capitalize pronoun ‘I’
Am I supposed to come with you?

Rule 3

Capitalize names
My brother Rakesh is a doctor.
My sisters Pooja and Reena live in London.

Rule 4

Capitalize titles that come before names of persons
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Doctor Arora, Professor Sangita
We mostly don’t capitalize titles when they come after the names.
‘Mukesh Ambani is the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited.’

Rule 5

Capitalize names of continents, countries, states, cities, towns, streets, seas
Indian Ocean, Singapore, Maharashtra, Jaipur, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, River Ganges, Lajpat Nagar

Rule 6

Capitalize names of languages, nationalities and religions
‘He speaks German.’
‘He is Korean.’
‘He practices Buddhism.’

Rule 7

Capitalize names of deities and holy books
God, Mahavira, Shiva, Quran, Gita

Rule 8

Capitalize names of businesses, schools, buildings, organizations
Yahoo, Don Bosco School, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust

Rule 9

Capitalize names of wars and major battles
Second World War, Indian Rebellion of 1857, Kargil War

Rule 10

Capitalize names of historical periods and events
British Raj, Vedic Period, Gupta Empire, Indus Valley Civilization

Rule 11

Do not capitalize names of seasons
‘I love summers more than winters.’

Rule 12

Capitalize first and last words of names of publications. Also capitalize short verbs like ‘is’, ‘are’ or ‘be’. But do not capitalize small words like ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, ‘but’, ‘as’, ‘if’, ‘and’, ‘or’
‘The God of Small Things’
‘Three Mistakes of my Life’

Rule 13

Capitalize brand names
Amul, Pepsi, Nike, Nissan

Rule 14

Capitalize names of days, months, holidays and days of observations
Tuesday, December, Diwali, Holi, Children’s Day

Rule 15

Capitalize names of awards and prizes
Grammy, Filmfare, Nobel Prize, Padmabhushan, Booker Prize

Rule 16

Capitalize in each acronym

CEO, NASA, TV, NDTV
As you read the rules you might have noticed that many of them are complicated and wonder that it might be difficult to remember all the rules by heart. To simplify things you should remember three key rules:

•    Always capitalize first letter of a sentence.
•    Always capitalize the pronoun ‘I’ in a sentence.
•    Always capitalize words that give a name to a person or thing.

As a matter of fact, all of the above sixteen stated capitalization rules are condensed in these three broad rules.



Learn Basic English Grammar and English Conversation at www.englishleap.com