Capitalizing Proper Names, Titles, and Subtitles

Capitalize the first word and all other important words in a title. Do not capitalize unimportant words with fewer than five letters. Consider these examples:

Phantom of the Opera
Catcher in the Rye
Last Tango in Paris

Capitalize the names of nationalities, religions, languages, and political or ethnic groups, as well as adjectives derived from these names. Consider these examples:

Japanese
Christians
Muslims
Protestantism
Latinos
Democrats
African-Americans
Puritans
Canadians
French
Spanish
Europeans

Capitalize the names of specific places, objects, and geographic features, as in these examples:

Asia
Empire State Building
Old Faithful
Titanic
Lake Erie

Capitalize school subjects only if they name a language or are used as part of a specific title. Consider these examples:

psychology
Psychology 101
history
English (a language)
anthropology
French (a language)

Capitalize most periods of time, including holidays, but do not capitalize seasons, as shown in these examples:

Monday
Fourth of July
the Reformation
winter
summer

Capitalize job titles only when they are used with a person’s name, as in these examples:

Professor Henry
a college professor
General Schwarzkopf
an army general
Doctor Grant
the family doctor
come here, Mom
my mother
President Lincoln
the president
my Uncle Patrick
my uncle over there
Mayor Brown will face re-election in the fall.
The mayor will face re-election in the fall.

Capitalize compass directions when they refer to specific regions or names, but not when they refer to general directions. Consider the following examples:

The Northeast is lovely in the fall.
I like the South better than the North.
The wind blew from the northeast, so I sailed south.