I, like you, have encountered instances where capitalization, punctuation, and spelling became an obstacle in my writing.
And this is not something I only encountered early on as a writer. It continues to plague me to this day. It raises doubts, makes me think twice, or serves as an immovable obstacle in writing which I then blame as writer’s block.
I no longer believe in writer’s block.
In its place, I believe that it is the lack of motivation that leads to a writer not doing what they’re supposed to be doing which is to write.
Another thing that could result in having doubts when it comes to proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling is that it disrupts our train of thought. I have been derailed so many times because of that.
But I continue to learn more about capitalization, punctuation, and spelling so that it becomes less and less an issue in my career as a writer.
I am sharing with you what I know and hopefully it will catapult you further than I in your chosen career as a writer.
Thankfully, there are tools that help us make writing easier like Grammarly, and Microsoft Word’s basic grammar and spelling check.
Still, I believe that we should have these skills inherent in us because we can’t rely on those tools all the time. We have to be self-reliant and able to determine when to use the right punctuation, provide the proper spelling, capitalize the right letter.
Let’s Start with the Very Basic Capitalization Rules
These, I believe, are the most basic rules one should understand about capitalization.
Always Capitalize:
- The first word of every sentence must start with a capital letter.
Right: “The dog is sleeping.”
Wrong: “the dog is sleeping.”
Other examples:
“The weather is beautiful today.”
“After dinner, we went for a walk.”
“What time is it? We need to leave soon.”
Take a look at the last example. If you noticed, there are two sentences in that line. If you try to look even deeper, you’ll notice that both sentences still follow the rule that the first word must start with a capital letter.
- The word “I”. Always capitalize “I” when it is a pronoun referring to yourself.
Right: “My friend and I went to the store.”
Wrong: “My friend and i went to the store.”
Other examples:
“When I was young, I loved playing outside.”
“My sister and I went shopping.”
The rule still applies even if the pronoun I is used as part of a contraction. Therefore, the contraction for I am, which is I’m, is still going to start with the capital I even if it is not placed at the start of the sentence. The same is true for I’ll (I will), I’ve (I have), I’d (I would).
- Capitalize proper nouns or names of specific people, places, and things
People: John, Maria, Dr. Smith
Places: London, Mexico, Pacific Ocean
Countries and nationalities: France, French, American
Languages: English, Spanish, Mandarin
Companies and brands: Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola
Buildings and monuments: Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower
Books, movies, songs: “The Great Gatsby,” “Star Wars,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Organizations: United Nations, Apple, Microsoft
Days and Months: Monday, January
Holidays: Christmas, Thanksgiving
Don’t Capitalize:
- Common nouns. The words dog, book, and tree are examples of common nouns.
- Directions (north, south) unless referring to a specific region (the South)
- Seasons (spring, summer)
- Articles (a, an, the) unless at the start of a sentence
- Prepositions in titles, unless starting or ending with in, on, at, or to.
- Conjunctions in titles like and, but, and or
- Words after hyphens except if the word is a proper noun. For example: non-profit, co-worker. The exception to the rule would be this: African-American.
Special Cases
Like every rule, there are exceptions like the one stated above. But these examples are the ones that should be treated as true exceptions because of how accepted the use of capitalization is for these cases.
Newly accepted technological terms: Internet and Web (when referring to the World Wide Web) are typically capitalized
Scientific names: capitalize genus, not species (Homo sapiens)
Historical periods: the Renaissance, the Middle Ages
Religious terms: God, Bible, Buddha, Islam
Common Capitalization Mistakes to Avoid:
- Don’t capitalize after a colon unless it’s a proper noun or the start of multiple sentences
Correct: “I need three things: milk, bread, and eggs.” and “I have one rule: Always be kind.”
- Don’t capitalize after a semicolon
Correct: “The sun was setting; the air was getting cooler.”
- Don’t capitalize random words for emphasis
Incorrect: “This is a Very Important Meeting”
Correct: “This is a very important meeting”
That’s it for that topic, now moving on to punctuation.
Basic Punctuation Rules
Period (.)
This is used to end complete thoughts and/or statements
Example:
“Lyle loves strawberry-flavored ice cream”
“I am enough”
“Stop.”
The period is also used in abbreviations.
Example: Mr., Dr., U.S.A.
“Mr. Canonigo married Dr. Villanueva.”
“Born in the U.S.A.”
Question Mark (?)
Used for direct questions.
“Where are you going?”
“How old is she?”
Take note that question marks are not used for indirect questions.
“I wonder where he is going.”
“I wonder how old she is.”
Comma (,)
Commas are primarily used to separate items in a list.
Example:
“I bought apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes.”
“The cat was small, black, and friendly.”
Commas are also used to separate independent clauses with coordinating conjunctions. Use the accepted acronym FANBOYS for this case to easily remember the coordinating conjunctions used.
- F – for
- A – and
- N – nor
- B – but
- O – or
- Y – yet
- S – so
Example:
“I wanted to go to the park, but it was raining.”
The third most common uses for commas are after introductory phrases.
- “After the movie, we went home.”
- “In my opinion, this is the best choice.”
Last, but not least, commas are used around non-essential information
“My brother, who currently lives in Cebu, is doing well.”
“My first book, “I am a Ghost (Writer), published in 2016, is doing well.”
Apostrophe (‘)
Apostrophes are used to show possession and to indicate where letters have been omitted when combining two words into a contraction. Contractions are most commonly made up of verbs, auxiliaries and modals attached to other words.
Example:
Shows possession
Singular: dog’s bowl
Plural: dogs’ bowls
Contractions
don’t (do not)
I’m (I am)
they’re (they are)
Semicolon (;)
Semicolons are used to join related independent clauses or to separate complex list items.
Example:
Related independent clauses: “I love snakes; my sister hates them.”
Complex list items: We are looking forward to visiting Bangkok, Thailand; the city-state of Singapore; and Osaka, Japan.
Colon (:)
Colons are used to introduce lists, quotes (or quotations), and/or explanations following an independent clause (or complete sentence).
Example:
List: “I need three things: milk, eggs, and bread.”
Explanation: “Here’s the reason: I forgot my keys.”
Quote: I love this lyric from Van Halen: “I can’t stop loving you!”
Quotation Marks (” “)
Quotation marks are used to denote direct speech or represent the exact written or spoken language from a person. It is also used to portray titles of short works like articles, poems, and short stories. Additionally, it can be used to give words or phrases special meaning.
Example:
Direct speech (written or spoken): “I’m going home,” she said.
Title: Have you read “The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, The Vampire Accountant”?
Special meaning: “She did a “great” job”.
Exclamation Point (!)
Exclamation points are used to show strong emotion or to provide emphasis. This punctuation, when overused, loses its value or meaning. Use it sparingly.
Example:
“Watch out!”
“I can’t believe we won!”
Common Punctuation Mistakes to Avoid:
- Comma Splices (joining independent clauses with just a comma)
Wrong: “It was raining, we stayed inside.”
Right: “It was raining, so we stayed inside.”
Or: “It was raining; we stayed inside.”
- Missing Commas After Introductory Phrases
Wrong: “After the game we went home.”
Right: “After the game, we went home.”
- Apostrophe Errors
Wrong: “The dog ate it’s food”
Right: “The dog ate its food”
For this section, I have borrowed heavily from these sites:
University of Minnesota – Writing for Success
Lincoln Land Community College
Whew, punctuations are tough! There are so many rules involved. Learn them by heart and you should be able to write without any disruption in the future.
Now on to spelling rules. My favorite.
Common Spelling Rules
Here are some common spelling rules that I follow as a writer. I hope it helps you.
“i before e, except after c.”
This rule is a reminder of a common spelling pattern for words that originated in French.
Example:
achieve, believe, field, thief
receipt, ceiling, conceit, conceive, deceit, receive, deceive
Exceptions to the rule include words that sound like “E”, words with a long “E” sound, and words with a vowel combination that doesn’t sound like “EE”
Words that sound like “E”
Example:
science, efficiency
Words with a long “E” sound
Example:
piece, brief, chief, weird, seize, protein, caffeine
Words with a vowel combination that doesn’t sound like “EE”
Example:
beige, neighbor, height, weight, foreign
When adding suffixes (-ing, -ed, -er, -est)
For words ending in silent e, remove the e and add -ing.
Example:
make = making
hope = hoping
smile = smiling
write = writing
For short words with one vowel followed by one consonant, double the final consonant
Example:
run = running
stop = stopped
big = bigger
slim = slimmest
For words ending in ‘y’, if the ‘y’ follows a consonant, change ‘y’ to ‘i’. if the ‘y’ follows a vowel, keep the ‘y’
Example:
If the ‘y’ follows a consonant
happy = happier
try = tried
cry = cried
If the ‘y’ follows a consonant
play = played
enjoy = enjoying
Changing Words from Singular to Plural Form.
The spelling of some words can change when you change them from singular to plural form. Here are some examples of how the spelling of these words change when you transform their singular form to plural form.
Add ‘s’
These is the most common way to change word from singular to plural form.
Example:
book = books
cat = cats
dog = dogs
For words ending in s, sh, ch, x, z; add es
Example:
box = boxes
church = churches
wish = wishes
For words ending in ‘f’ or ‘fe’, change ‘f’ or ‘fe’ to ‘ves’
Example:
knife = knives
leaf = leaves
wolf = wolves
Remember
Alright, I think I’ve written enough words for the day. Just remember these things:
- There are always exceptions to the rule.
- When in doubt, get a dictionary.
- Practice, practice, practice
- And don’t be afraid to make mistakes
Why I Love Words.
I have been blessed to have people who instilled the love of words very early on in my life. My mom encouraged reading while my dad encouraged speaking English as part of our daily conversations. Because of that, my siblings and I, are comfortable switching between Filipino, English, the local Waray and Cebuano vernacular and other languages we’ve learned along the way.
My maternal grandparents, whom I usually spend summers with, reinforced that practice by incorporating English in our daily lives. Lola Diting was a teacher, and I would spend countless hours playing Scrabble with her.
My grandfather, on the other hand, was a lawyer. He was a devoted chronicler who wrote countless entries into his journals about what was happening in Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte. When he died, I made it a point to preserve his journals. They are with me and are in the process of being digitized.
My paternal grandmother, Lola Mary, was also a schoolteacher. She instilled the love of reading with her extensive library and her sharp memory. She would point out books and tell me what they were about and encouraged me to read just in case she forgot some details.
My sister also had an extensive library of books although hers were more of the Mills & Boon variety. I did enjoy reading her Sweet Valley High School series, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys novels.
Other Notable People Who Made Me Fall in Love with Words, Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling
Other notable mentions would have to go to my elementary and high school teachers who made learning an exciting and fulfilling experience. I’d also have to mention my seminary peers Yul Avestruz and Denchu Decino whom I worked with on the school paper.
Yul served as my spelling advisor when I entered a spelling bee contest, and I went up against the formidable Denchu as my main competitor. I believe I came in second if memory serves me right.
Last, but not least, Chari, my childhood friend, who made me shut up and read more during our Philippine Science Entrance Exams study sessions.
Learn Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling and Become a Better Writer
Although there are tools like Grammarly and Word’s built-in spelling and grammar checker available, it is still in your best interest to learn more about capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
I hope what I have written here helps you in your journey to become a better writer.
In parting, I encourage you to read and write extensively in English. Read aloud or use it as part of your daily conversations to hasten your growth. Keep a list of words you commonly misspell and practice your comprehension with online exercises and quizzes.
Speaking of quizzes, here’s a short one for you to enjoy.