Capital letters are important signals in writing. Writers use capital letters to signal the beginning of sentences and direct quotes and to indicate names and titles of specific people, places, and things.
He stopped at the newsstand on the corner and bought his paper, saying "Good morning" with real conviction to the man who sold him the paper and the two or three other people who were lucky enough to be buying papers when Mr. Johnson skipped by.
—from "One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts" written by short story writer Shirley Jackson
The sentence has properly followed several rules of capitalization.
Capitalize the first word in a sentence, no matter how short.
A large package sat on my front porch.
What a surprise!
Capitalize the first word in a quotation if the quotation is a complete sentence but not if the quote is an incomplete part of a sentence.
Mother replied, "You'll have to work harder."
Mother said she would leave "before the sun is high in the sky."
Capitalize the first word after a colon if the word begins a complete sentence.
Everyone asked the same question: How will we raise funds?
Capitalize each part of a person's name.
Samuel L. Clemens, Sandra Day O'Connor
Capitalize geographical names and special places, except for words such as the and of.
Helena, Montana, the Statue of Liberty
Capitalize the names of specific events and holidays (Rose Bowl Parade, Easter), historical periods of time (the Middle Ages), days and months (Thursday, July), religious references and books (Allah, the Bible), awards (Nobel Peace Prize), and product names (Instaflash Film).
Capitalize specific regions of a country but do not capitalize compass directions.
We traveled to the Northeast.
We headed south and then turned east.
Capitalize most proper adjectives, but do not capitalize common terms (french fries), most prefixes with proper adjectives (pre-Renaissance), and the common part of a hyphenated proper adjective (French-speaking).
Capitalize titles of people and the first word and other key words in titles of artistic works.
Sergeant Lane, Rev. Santoro, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, "The Cask of Amontillado"
Capitalize the first word and all nouns in letter salutations and only the first word in letter closings.
My dear Friends, Dear Aunt Helene, Very truly yours, Sincerely yours,
