SpellCheck isn’t Enough!
May 15th, 2012Capital Punishment ☺
April 25th, 2012CAPITALIZE:
- A person’s name.
- A person’s title when it precedes the name.
- Days of the week, months of the year.
- Special days, holidays.
- Organizations and abbreviations of organizations.
- Historical periods, documents, and events.
- Nationality, race, or language.
- Personification of objects or abstract concepts.
- First word of a statement.
- When used as part of a proper name: lake, county, high school, college, river, street, park, country, company, institution, etc. (Ohio River, the river)
- A noun identifying a family member when used as a name. (Mom, your mom)
- Geographical locations-specific. (The West, out west)
- References to the Diety.
- The pronoun “I.”
- Acronyms (AT&T, URL)
- In a title, all words except prepositions, articles, and conjunctions of four letters or less (Days of Thunder) unless it’s the first word. (The Runaway Bride)
- Subjects studied that are specific titles (Composition 101, meteorology, American History 202, biology)
DON’T CAPITALIZE:
- Points on a compass or direction.
- Seasons of the year.
- Pronouns other than “I” unless at the start of a sentence or part of a title.
EXAMPLES:We watched West Wing before heading down south.Independence Day falls on a Wednesday this year, according to my mother.Mother is always right about summer holidays.Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and best wishes for the new year.
Count on Me: Six Rules to Writing Numbers
April 18th, 2012Today’s guest post is from Internet blogger Kate Croston.
When writing numbers there are a few rules you should follow to be grammatically correct. They are pretty simple and easy to remember.
First rule:
• Single digit whole numbers–Spell out
• Any number above the number ninety-nine use numerical form
• Examples:
o There were two dogs in the front yard today.
o I have 112 bottles left.
Second rule:
• Be consistent with your numbers. If you have a sentence with two different numbers and one number is greater than 99, spell out both numbers.
• Examples:
o I would rather have one hundred dogs than one cat.
o It will run between ninety to a hundred miles per hour.
Third rule:
• For large numbers, use your judgment on the easiest way to write it. Round numbers are usually spelled out.
• Be consistent within the sentence.
• Examples:
o I hope to win two million to three million in the next lottery.
o He said he may get 425,897 pens or 450,299.
Fourth rule:
• Use whole numbers when using dates.
• Examples:
o She set the business meeting for May 24.
o I plan on setting the date for the 17th of March.
Fifth rule:
• Write out a number if it is at the beginning of the sentence.
• Examples:
o Seventeen people voted.
o Two people showed up to protest.
Sixth rule:
• Hyphenate all compound numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine
• Examples:
o I have twenty-three dollars left in my account.
o He said he needed ninety-four business cards.
Author Bio:
Kate Croston is a freelance writer, holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing Internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to: katecroston.croston09@gmail.com.
Plurals
April 11th, 2012
