3.5 Capitalization
Key Takeaways
- Capitalize proper nouns (specific people, places, and things) but not common nouns naming general categories.
- Capitalize a title before a name (Professor Lee) but lowercase it when it stands alone or follows a name.
- Capitalize the days, months, and holidays, but never the four seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter).
- Capitalize the first, last, and all major words in a title; lowercase short articles, conjunctions, and prepositions inside it.
- Capitalize directions only when they name a specific region (the South), not when they indicate a compass direction (drive south).
3.5 Capitalization
The PERT lists Grammar, Spelling, Capitalization, and Punctuation Skills as one of its writing competency clusters, so a revision question can hinge entirely on whether a word should be capitalized. These items usually ask you to choose the sentence that is written correctly or to identify the version with no error. Because English capitalization follows fixed rules rather than the way a sentence sounds, mastering a short list of categories lets you answer these questions with confidence. The test writers rarely ask about exotic cases; instead they reuse the same handful of predictable traps—capitalizing a season, capitalizing a stand-alone title, or capitalizing a common noun the writer simply thought was important. Learn the categories below and you can eliminate wrong answers quickly.
1. Proper Nouns vs. Common Nouns
Capitalize a proper noun, which names a specific person, place, or thing. Do not capitalize a common noun, which names a general category.
| Common noun (lowercase) | Proper noun (capitalize) |
|---|---|
| a river | the Mississippi River |
| a college | Valencia College |
| a country | Brazil |
| a language always: Spanish, English | (languages are always capitalized) |
| my aunt | Aunt Maria |
A frequent trap is a family title. Capitalize it only when it replaces or precedes a name: I asked Mom for advice (name substitute) but I asked my mom for advice (common noun with a possessive). The same logic governs place words: high school is a common noun, but Riverdale High School names one specific institution, so every word is capitalized. A useful test is to ask whether the word points to one particular thing that has a name of its own; if it does, capitalize it, and if it merely labels a category, leave it lowercase.
2. Titles Before Names
Capitalize a professional or courtesy title when it comes directly before a person's name. Lowercase it when it stands alone or follows the name.
- Correct: We met Senator Ruiz after class.
- Correct: We met the senator after class.
- Correct: The speaker was Elena Ruiz, a senator from Florida.
The same rule applies to academic and workplace titles such as Professor, Dr., Governor, and President. Professor Lee assigned the reading is correct, but the professor assigned the reading keeps the title lowercase because it now functions as a common noun describing a role rather than naming a person.
3. Dates, Seasons, and Holidays
Capitalize days of the week, months, and holidays, but never the four seasons.
- Correct: Classes resume on Monday, the first week of January, right after the New Year holiday.
- Correct: The fall semester and the following spring semester share the same catalog. (seasons stay lowercase)
Because months and days are always capitalized while seasons never are, a single sentence can contain both patterns, and the test loves to combine them: Registration for the spring term opens on Thursday, December 4. Reading the season as if it were a month is the classic mistake here.
4. Titles of Works
In the title of a book, article, movie, or essay, capitalize the first word, the last word, and every major word in between. Lowercase short articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or), and short prepositions (of, in, to) unless they begin or end the title.
- Correct: The Old Man and the Sea (the coordinating conjunction and is lowercase; The is capitalized because it is the first word, and Sea because it is the last).
- Correct: A Room of One's Own (of is a short preposition, so it is lowercase).
Remember that verbs, no matter how short, are always major words: in Let It Snow, the two-letter verb Let and the pronoun It are both capitalized. Only the small connecting words—articles, coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions—drop to lowercase inside a title.
5. Directions vs. Regions
Capitalize a compass word only when it names a specific region; keep it lowercase when it indicates a direction.
- Region: She grew up in the South and later moved to the Northeast.
- Direction: Drive south for two miles, then turn west.
6. First Words and Proper Adjectives
Always capitalize the first word of a sentence and the first word of a direct quotation that is a full sentence: The coach said, "Practice starts at noon." When a quotation is interrupted, do not re-capitalize the continuation: "Practice," she said, "starts at noon." Finally, capitalize proper adjectives, which are adjectives formed from proper nouns: Italian food, Shakespearean drama, and a Floridian summer all take a capital because they derive from the names Italy, Shakespeare, and Florida.
Exam Strategy
When a question asks which sentence is correct, scan for these predictable capitalization errors: a season capitalized, a title capitalized when it stands alone, a compass direction capitalized, or a common noun capitalized because the writer thought it was important. "Importance" never justifies a capital letter—only the grammatical category does. Work through the answer choices one word at a time, checking each capitalized word against a category (proper noun, title before a name, day/month/holiday, first or major word in a title, region, or proper adjective). The correct option is the one in which every capital is justified by a rule and every lowercase word is a genuine common noun.
Which sentence is capitalized correctly?
In which sentence is the title used correctly?
Which phrase shows correct capitalization for the title of a book?