Here is a brief listing of the common practices associated with capitalization:

Necessary Capitals:

Capitalize the first letter of every sentence, acceptable fragment, and line of poetry*:

Today is the first day of school.

Set the book down.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye! (William Wordsworth)

Because I could not stop for death---

He kindly stopped for me (Emily Dickinson)

*Some poets do not capitalize the first letter of every line of poetry. Copy a poem exactly as the poet wrote it.

Capitalize the first and last word in the salutation of a letter; capitalize the first word in the complementary close:

Dear Friend   Dear John               My dearest Darling

Sincerely yours          Yours truly              Sincerely

Capitalize proper nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns:

George Washington          W. Fred Jones           John F. Kennedy

John Bull                   Mr. October            John Doe

Capitalize foreign names exactly as they were originally written because they often contain da, de, della, la, le, van der, von which do not adhere to consistent capitalization practices:

Charles de Gaulle      Andrea Del Sarto       Vincent Van Gogh

Walter de la Mare     Erich Von Stroheim     Ingrid van Bergen

Capitalize adjectives derived from proper nouns:

Marxist philosophy      a Miltonic sonnet       a Shakespearean actor

Capitalize countries, nationalities, races, tribes, languages:

Germany      English       Caucasian      Muskogean       Arabic

Capitalize states, regions, localities, cities, town, and other geographical and political divisions of the world. Capitalize words like north, south, east, northeast, and west when they are names of specific areas of the country or the world. Do not capitalize these terms when they mean a direction:

The North won the war.              We are traveling north.

She is from the Far East.         Which way is east?       

Idaho         the Arctic       Western Europe      New York City       

Cozy Corners         United Kingdom      Sixth Precinct          South Pole

Capitalize oceans, lakes, mountains, deserts, streets, avenues, parks, rivers, valleys, and other topographical names:

Atlantic Ocean      Lake Tahoe           Gobi Desert          Monroe Avenue      

Central Park          Red River            Red River Valley     Nile Delta

Capitalize educational institutions, schools, departments, and course names:

Oregon State University      College of Business     English Language Institute  

Mathematics Department    Marketing 101      Advanced Speaking & Listening    

Business Writing           the Board of Regents

Capitalize organizations and their names:

American League        Republicans       Meridian Lodge           Salvation Army

Democratic Party        Girl Scouts        Rotary Club             Rotarians

Capitalize structures and public places:

the Louvre      Empire State Building           Memorial Union      the White House

Capitalize corporations, government agencies, associations and conferences, trade names:

U.S. Steel Corporation         House of Representatives           IRS           Kleenex

Levis              The Kennedy Foundation           Kellogg's Corn Flakes

Capitalize calendar references, holidays, days of the week, months:

Labor Day       Christmas        Monday           June           Yom Kippur

Capitalize heavenly bodies:

Mars         Saturn           the Milky Way               Halley's Comet

Capitalize religious references:

the Almighty      God     Allah      Jehovah     Genesis

the Old Testament      Isis      Westminster Confession     3 John

Capitalize historic events:

First Crusade          Declaration of Independence          English Reform Bill

the Boxer Rebellion         Victorian Period                    Archeozoic Era

Capitalize flags, emblems, orders, college colors:

the Crescent         the Crimson and Gold        

the Cross          the Purple Heart

Capitalize Titles:

When joined to a name:

President Harry S. Truman           Dean Parker            Doctor Henry           Professor Hill

Not when following a name or used alone in place of a name:

George Washington, president of the United States          

Isabella, queen of Edward II

Roberta Hope, chairperson of the Political Science Department

The professor ate lunch today.

The college president attended the meeting last night.

Capitalize family relationships only when they are followed by a name:

Aunt Grace          Uncle Fred           my cousin            grandmother          mom

Cousin Vinnie

Capitalize abbreviations after names:

Henry White, M.S.          William Green, Jr.           James Foster, Ph.D.

Capitalize titles except for articles (except for a beginning "the"), conjunctions, and prepositions:

Last of the Mohicans     The Time of Your Life      "My Last Duchess" War and Peace

Newsweek      Christian Science Monitor          The Odyssey

Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent

Capitalize the titles of art forms (poems, musical compositions, television programs, paintings, movies, songs, etc.):

La Traviata           "The Days of Our Lives"          An American in Paris

Michelangelo's La Pieta           "Stardust"          Three Gabled Houses

Capitalize ships, airplanes, trains, and spacecraft:

Sputnik II           Apollo II      Spirit of St. Louis     

The Coast Starlight        U.S.S. Admiral H.T. Mayo    Enterprise 

H.M.S. Hood      S.S. Kingsholm

Capitalize academic degrees (when they are used with someone's name as a title) :

May L. Snow, Doctor of Philosophy

Henry Ford, Master of Science

Unnecessary Capitals:

Don't capitalize the names of seasons when they are used generally (capitalize seasons when they are used with another noun and thus function as proper nouns):

spring         fall         Spring term

Don't capitalize nouns that name no specific place or thing:

avenue     building       club     library      desert

mountain     hospital      railroad       school      river

Don't capitalize names of schools and school subjects unless they are derived from a proper noun, name a particular school, or are course names:

history      History 101      History of Medicine      high school       Corvallis High School

Don't capitalize words that name an academic year:

 freshman      senior    undergraduate

Don't capitalize academic degrees referred to in general terms:

I am studying for a master's of arts degree.      I got my master's last year.

Don't capitalize titles used descriptively after a name:

Henry Brooks, secretary of the association, attended the meeting.

George Jones, who is running for president, opened the meeting.

Don't capitalize period designations, such as centuries, unless they are part of a proper noun:

Chaucer wrote in the fourteenth century. Byron is a poet of the romantic period.

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