21.1: Mechanics

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Capital Letters

Use capital letters in the following situations.

Capitalize the first word of a sentence: The weather is rainy today.
Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives: Monday, New Orleans, Mexico, Florida, Halloween, United States Constitution, Department of Education, University of Texas, Native American, Islam, Italian, Freudian.
Capitalize titles that precede a person’s name: Dr. Atul Gawande, Senator Tammy Baldwin. [But: Atul Gawande, a doctor; Tammy Baldwin, a senator]

Many online resources, such as this one (https://openstax.org/r/this-one), list words that should be capitalized. You can also consult a dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster (https://openstax.org/r/Merriam-Webster), to determine whether to capitalize a word.

Titles of Works

Titles of books, articles, stories, plays, poems, films, and other works are handled differently depending on the documentation style you are using. The guidelines here follow MLA style.

Capitalization in Titles and Subtitles

Capitalize the first and last words in a title and subtitle and other important words. Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so), or prepositions (above, with, of, in, through, beyond, under) unless they are the first or last words in the title or subtitle.

Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality (book)
Judas and the Black Messiah (film)
“American Military Performance in Vietnam: Background and Analysis” (article)

Italics for Titles of Long Works

Use italics for long works that are published, produced, or released separately from other works. These include books, long poems, plays, movies, videos, published speeches, periodicals (newspapers, magazines, and academic and professional journals), websites, long musical works, works of visual art, computer software, TV or radio programs and series, and pamphlets.

Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food (book)
The New Yorker (periodical)
The Los Angeles Times (newspaper)
American Idiot (album)
Parasite (film)
Saturday Night Live (TV program)

Quotation Marks for Titles of Shorter Works

Put quotation marks around the titles and subtitles of individual shorter works or those that are published or released within larger works. These include articles in periodicals (newspapers, magazines, and academic and professional journals), pages or works on a website, short stories, short poems, essays, songs, episodes of TV or radio programs and series, book chapters, and unpublished speeches.

“Living with a Visionary” (article in a magazine)
“A World of Fields and Fences” (work on a website)
“New York Day Women” (short story)
“Corson’s Inlet” (short poem)
“Return from ISIS” (TV episode)