See D1 in the Quick Editing Guide for advice and a useful chart on capitalization.
Use capital letters only with good reason. If you think a word will work in lowercase letters, you’re probably right.
| 29a | Capitalize proper names and adjectives made from proper names. |
For capitalization following a colon, see 23.
Proper names designate individuals, places, organizations, institutions, brand names, and certain other distinctive things. Any proper noun can have an adjective form, also capitalized.
| Miles Standish | University of Iowa | Australian beer |
| Belgium | a Volkswagen | a Renaissance man |
| United Nations | a Xerox copier | Shakespearean comedy |
| 29b | Capitalize a title or rank before a proper name. |
During her second term, Senator Wilimczyk proposed several bills.
In his lecture, Professor Jones analyzed fossil evidence.
Titles that do not come before proper names usually are not capitalized.
Ten senators voted against the research appropriation.
Jones is the department’s only full professor.
EXCEPTION: The abbreviation of an academic or professional degree is always capitalized. The informal name of a degree is not capitalized.
Dora E. McLean, MD, also holds a BA in music.
Dora holds a bachelor’s degree in music.
| 29c | Capitalize a family relationship only when it is part of a proper name or when it substitutes for a proper name. |
Do you know the song about Mother Machree?
I have invited Mother to visit next weekend.
I would like you to meet my aunt, Emily Smith.
| 29d | Capitalize the names of religions, their deities, and their followers. |
| Christianity | Muslims | Jehovah | Krishna |
| Islam | Methodists | Allah | the Holy Spirit |
| 29e | Capitalize proper names of places, regions, and geographic features. |
| Los Angeles | the Black Hills | the Atlantic Ocean |
| Death Valley | Big Sur | the Philippines |
Do not capitalize north, south, east, or west unless it is part of a proper name (West Virginia, South Orange) or refers to formal geographic locations.
Drive south to Chicago and then east to Cleveland.
Jim, who has always lived in the South, likes to read about the Northeast.
A common noun such as street, avenue, boulevard, park, lake, or hill is capitalized when part of a proper name.
| Meinecke Avenue | Hamilton Park | Lake Michigan |
| 29f | Capitalize days of the week, months, and holidays, but not seasons or academic terms |
During spring term, by the Monday after Passover, I have to choose between the January study plan and junior year abroad.
| 29g | Capitalize historical events, periods, and documents |
| Black Monday | the Roaring Twenties |
| the Civil War [but a civil war] | Magna Carta |
| the Holocaust [but a holocaust] | Declaration of Independence |
| the Bronze Age | Atomic Energy Act |
| 29h | Capitalize the names of schools, colleges, departments, and courses. |
West School, Central High School [but middle school, high school]
Reed College, Arizona State University [but the college, a university]
Department of History [but history department, department office]
Feminist Perspectives in British Literature [but literature course]
| 29i | Capitalize the first, last, and main words in titles. |
When you write the title of a paper, book, article, work of art, television show, poem, or performance, capitalize the first and last words and all main words in between. Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet), or prepositions (such as in, on, at, of, from) unless they come first or last in the title or follow a colon.
For advice on using quotation marks and italics for titles, see 25e and 31a.
| ESSAY | “Once More to the Lake” |
| NOVEL | Of Mice and Men |
| VOLUME OF POETRY | Poems after Martial |
| POEM | “A Valediction: Of Weeping” |
| 29j | Capitalize the first letter of a quoted sentence |
For advice on punctuating quotations, see 25g–25i.
Oscar Wilde wrote, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
Only the first word of a quoted sentence is capitalized, even when you break the sentence with words of your own.
“The only way to get rid of a temptation,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “is to yield to it.”
For advice on using brackets to show changes in quotations, see 27c.
If you quote more than one sentence, start each one with a capital letter.
“Art should never try to be popular,” said Wilde. “The public should try to make itself artistic.”
Select a quoted passage carefully so that you can present its details accurately as it blends in with your sentence.