Capitalization and Punctuation

Every good sentence contains both capitalization and punctuation. The first word of a sentence must be capitalized and the end of the sentence must have some type of punctuation after it. The capital letter at the beginning of a sentence tells the reader that a new sentence is starting. The punctuation at the end of a sentence tells you that one thought is ending. However, we need to know that we use capital letters for more than just the beginning of a sentence and punctuation more than at the end. In this section we will learn where to use a capital letter and where to use the proper punctuation.

Use capital letters to mark the start of:

• the first word in a sentence.
  The man walked to work.
• the word "I"
  He and I ran to the store.
• names of people or important things
  Donna, Martin Luther King, the Stanley Cup
• names of organizations (or businesses)
  Walmart, Neil Squire Foundation, Royal Bank
• names of towns/cities/streets
  Kindersley, Ottawa, Elm Street
• names of countries
  Canada, United States, Venezuela, Kenya
• names of the days of the week and months of the year
  Saturday, February
• the important words in the title of a book, movie, play
  Phantom of the Opera, Gone with the Wind
• abbreviations of titles that come before names
  Dr., Mr., Ms, Rev. etc.