Writing Craft Book Reviews: A Book A Week
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Capitalization: CUPS for Editing Part 1
Think back to your language arts classes in high school. Do you remember using CUPS for editing? (Really, this should be proofreading instead of editing, but our teachers were working with the curriculum they had!) If you’re thinking, “CUPS? For editing? Wha—?” here’s a short explanation of how to use the acronym to proofread your writing.
Each letter stands for a different thing to check when you are proofreading:
C – Capitalization
U – Usage
P – Punctuation
S – Spelling
When you are first starting to use the CUPS checklist for proofreading, you make four passes through your writing, checking for issues with one of these things on each pass. As you get more practice proofreading, you can take fewer passes.
My next few posts will go over each of the letters in the CUPS editing strategy one by one.
What are the rules for capitalization?
Let’s start with a capitalization exercise. Here is a writing sample with all of the capital letters removed. See if you can figure out what’s missing.
i reached into my purse and brought out the key that the president of the hoa had given me on monday. the petty tyrant had introduced herself as “president jones.”
“you can only stay at west sunvale terrace,” she said, looking down her nose at me, “until your aunt returns in the fall. that is a one-person apartment.”
i can’t wait for september, i thought as iunlocked the door and stepped into the kitchen. the counters had been white once, and the floor was that shade of gold that had been popular in the seventies. “harvest gold,” maybe. yeah, i’m glad i missed the swinging seventies. with a small fridge, microwave, two burners, and no oven, it was a small, cramped, sad kitchen meant for someone who lived alone and didn’t have visitors. “just perfect,” i said. “you had better appreciate this, aunt maggie.”
How easy was that to read and understand? Not very, I’d bet.
Now, here is the same writing sample with correct capitalization.
I reached into my purse and brought out the key that the president of the HOA had given me on Monday. The petty tyrant had introduced herself as “President Jones.”
“You can only stay at West Sunvale Terrace,” she said, looking down her nose at me, “until your aunt returns in the fall. That is a one-person apartment.”
I can’t wait for September, I thought as I unlocked the door and stepped into the kitchen. The counters had been white once, and the floor was that shade of gold that had been popular in the seventies. “Harvest Gold,” maybe. yeah, I’m glad I missed the Swinging Seventies. With a small fridge, microwave, two burners, and no oven, it was a small, cramped, sad kitchen meant for someone who lived alone and didn’t have visitors. “Just perfect,” I said. “You had better appreciate this, Aunt Maggie.”
So much easier to read, right? But how did it get from there to here?
Before we go over individual rules, you should know that some of these depend on which style guide you are using. I use the Chicago Manual of style, which you can find here.
If you want more information about style guides, I have a blog post here.
Some of the rules of capitalization are easy:
the word I, the first word of sentences, and proper names get capitalized. I’m pretty sure I remember learning about this way back in school.
Others are not as clear, but there is an easier way to figure this out. The rules for capitalization (well… most of them anyway) can be simplified down to a single general rule:
If it applies to something GENERAL, then it needs a lowercase letter. If it is something that is SPECIFIC, then you need to use a capital.
Think about the capitalization of jobs and titles.
In the paragraph above, the first instance of president is lowercase because it could refer to any number of people.
…the key that the president of the HOA had given me…
The second instance is capitalized because it is the (pretentious) title of a particular individual.
The petty tyrant had introduced herself as “President Jones.”
It’s the same with family members. When you’re talking about my aunt, (or your aunt) like this:
…until your aunt returns.
it’s lowercase, but when you are talking about a specific person, it’s a capital, like this:
You had better appreciate this, Aunt Maggie.
Another example of our capitalization rule:
Days of the week and months of the year are capitalized, and you know that, right?
…had given me on Monday.
I can’t wait for September…
But why is the s in seventies sometimes a capital letter and sometimes not?
One of the ways to think about this is that any period of 24 hours is general and would be written in lowercase, but Monday is the name of a specific span of 24 hours.
Therefore,
…popular in the seventies…
is lowercase because it’s a general span of 10 years. On the other hand,
…I’m glad I missed the Swinging Seventies…
uses a capital because it’s the name of this particular period of 10 years.
It’s the same with …that shade of gold… (general) and …Harvest Gold… (the name of that specific shade of gold.)
How are you feeling? More confident about proofreading your writing on your own? If you aren’t yet sure, you can try out the capitalization quiz right below.
And if you want a different flavor of quiz, here’s a link to a Chicago Manual of Style capitalization quiz.
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Be sure to read my next three blog posts that cover
and spelling.
If you want another set of eyes to go over your work, drop me a line on my contact page and find out more about my proofreading services
Hi, I'm Tamara
I help authors, researchers, business people, students, and web marketers to polish their writing before they send it out into the world.
Every Monday, I send out tips on proofreading and editing to help you become a better writer.
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