Capitalization

Capitals Only When Necessary

Capitals Only When Necessary

Capitalisation helps learners recognise sentence beginnings, proper nouns, titles, and other standard writing conventions. In ELT materials, clear and consistent use of capitals supports readability, accuracy, and professional presentation.

◎Aim

To understand when to capitalise letters in training materials, and to apply these rules consistently in headings, examples, and other learner-facing content.

1First word in a sentence

The train is late again.

2The pronoun “I”

  • She said that I could join the meeting.

3Proper nouns

Capitalise names of people, places, companies, languages, and specific things.

Maria lives in Paris.
She speaks French and Spanish.

4Days, months, and holidays

  • Monday, July, Christmas
(Seasons—spring, summer, fall, winter—are lowercase unless personified or part of a title.)

5Titles of people

Capitalise titles when used with a name, not when used generally.

  • President Biden visited the city.
  • The president gave a speech.

If a title appears after a name, it is usually lowercase:

  • Emmanuel Macron, president of France, gave a statement.

6AM and PM

Use AM and PM in either upper or lower case with no periods, and a space after the number.

  • The meeting starts at 9 AM.
  • The call ends at 4:30 pm.

7Title Case

  1. Use title case for the titles of courses and lessons.
  • Capitalize the first and all main words in titles of books, articles, movies, etc. unless they are articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor).
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  • How to Write Better Emails
  • If the first element is merely a prefix or combining form that could not stand by itself as a word (anti, pre, etc.), do not capitalize the second element unless it is a proper noun or proper adjective.
  • If you are using hyphens in title case, you may need to capitalize the word after the hyphen.
  1. Use normal sentence case for other headings:
  • Function language headings, for example:
  • Agreeing and disagreeing:
  • I agree/disagree with…
  1. Vocabulary and definitions are not capitalized and follow the bullet point rule.
  • project – a piece of work completed over a period of time.

8First word in a direct quote

  • He said, “This is important.”

9Acronyms and initialisms

Always capitalize acronyms.

  • NASA, FBI, EU

10Departments, brand names, companies and trademarks

Use the company’s preferred capitalization.

  • Sales, iPhone, Apple, LinkedIn

11Subjects, course names & units

Use title case.

  • For example: English, English for Tourism, Small Talk, Introducing Yourself.

✓Key Takeaway

  • Rule-driven: capitalize only when the rule requires it.
  • Consistent: use the same style within the same type of heading or list.
  • Readable: follow the house style and keep learner-facing text clear.