1. Capitalize the first word in a sentence.

This is the most basic rule of capitalization.

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2. Capitalize the pronoun “I.”

Another basic one, but in today’s text-message driven world, it bears mentioning.

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3. Capitalize proper nouns: the names of specific people, places, organizations, and sometimes things.

For instance, “Austin, Texas,” “Patrick O’Brian,” “Ragan Communications,” “Supreme Court.”

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4. Capitalize family relationships when used as proper nouns.

Capitalize “Uncle John,” and “Grandma Jesse,” but leave it lower case when it’s not referring to a person’s name. For instance, “We visit my cousin every Christmas.”

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5. Capitalize titles that appear before names, but not after names.

This is perhaps the greatest capitalization crime in corporate America. Remember, it’s “President of Writing Advice Laura Brockway” or “Laura Brockway, president of writing advice,” not the other way around.

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6. Capitalize directions that are names; North, South, East, and West when used as sections of the country, but not as compass directions.

So capitalize “The Pacific Northwest” and “Central Texas,” but not “We drove west for two hours.”

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7. Capitalize the days of the week, the months of the year, and holidays, but not the seasons used generally.

However, seasons are capitalized when used as a proper title. Some examples:

• “I will attend that conference in the fall.”

• “I have registered for three classes for Spring Semester 2013.”

• “We celebrate Valentine’s Day in July.”

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8. Capitalize members of national, political, racial, social, civic, and athletic groups.

For instance, “Texas Longhorns,” “Libertarians,” “Chinese.”

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9. Capitalize periods and events, but not century numbers.

So that would be “Victorian Era” and “Great Depression,” and “first century.”

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10. Capitalize trademarks.

Examples would be “Subaru,” “Coca-Cola,” “Apple.”