In the Middle Ages, capital letters were a big deal. Large, decorative caps marked the beginning of chapters in handwritten manuscripts. In recent years, capital letters have made a comeback. Many people use capital letters for emphasis in their emails and texts; YOU may be one of them. Others randomly insert capital letters in the middle of their product names. Think of eBay, iMac, and iPhone. This practice, known as CamelCapping, is rarely used in academic writing. Be mindful that creative, unconventional uses of uppercase letters are not permitted by English teachers.

In this lesson, you will learn about the conventions of capitalization that are approved by your English teacher. This lesson will help remind you to separate texting, where capitalization is optional, from academic writing, which is governed by a specific set of rules. Some of these capitalization rules will be a review, while others will be new to you. More importantly, you will improve your academic writing by learning to edit with these rules in mind. As a final activity, you will apply your knowledge of the capitalization rules to a proofreading assignment.