DEL RIO INDUSTRIAL CONSULTANTS
3.06 Personal and Business Titles
a. Capitalize personal and business titles when they precede names:
Vice President Ames Uncle Edward Board Chairman Frazier Councilman Herbert Governor G. W. Thurmond Sales Manager Klein Professor McLean Dr. Samuel Washington b. Capitalize titles in addresses, salutations, and closing lines:
Mr. Juan deSanto Very truly yours, Director of Purchasing
Space Systems, Inc. Clara J. Smith
Boxborough, MA 01719 Supervisor, Marketing
c. Generally, do not capitalize titles of high government rank or religious office when they stand alone or follow a person’s name in running text.
The president conferred with the joint chiefs of staff and many senators.
Meeting with the chief justice of the Supreme Court were the senator from Ohio and the mayor of Cleveland.
Only the cardinal from Chicago had an audience with the pope.
d. Do not capitalize most common titles following names:
The speech was delivered by Robert Lynch, president, Academic Publishing.
Lois Herndon, chief executive officer, signed the order.
e. Do not capitalize common titles appearing alone:
Please speak to the supervisor or to the office manager.
Neither the president nor the vice president could attend.
*Note: Capitalize the only when it is part of the official name of an organization, as printed on the organization’s stationery.
However, when the title of an official appears in that organization’s minutes, bylaws, or other official document, it may be capitalized.
f. Do not capitalize titles when they are followed by appositives naming specific individuals:
We must consult our director of research, Ronald E. West, before responding.
g. Do not capitalize family titles used with possessive pronouns:
my mother your father our aunt his cousin
h. Capitalize titles of close relatives used without pronouns:
Both Mother and Father must sign the contract.
3.07 Numbered and Lettered Items. Capitalize nouns followed by numbers or letters (except in page, paragraph, line, and verse references):
Flight 34, Gate 12 Plan No. 2 Volume I, Part 3 Warehouse 33-A Invoice No. 55489 Figure 8.3
Model A5673 Serial No. C22865404-2
State Highway 10 page 6, line 5
3.08 Points of the Compass. Capitalize north, south, east, west, and their derivatives when they represent specific geographical regions. Do not capital- ize the points of the compass when they are used in directions or in general references.
specific regions General references
from the South heading north on the highway living in the Midwest west of the city
Easterners, Southerners western Nevada, southern Indiana going to the Middle East the northern part of the United States from the East Coast the east side of the street
3.09 Departments, Divisions, and Committees. Capitalize the names of departments, divisions, or committees within your own organization. Outside your organization capitalize only specific department, division, or committee names:
The inquiry was addressed to the Legal Department in our Consumer Products Division.
John was appointed to the Employee Benefits Committee.
Send your résumé to their human resources division.
A planning committee will be named shortly.
3.10 Governmental Terms. Do not capitalize the words federal, government, nation, or state unless they are part of a specific title:
Unless federal support can be secured, the state project will be abandoned.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation protects depositors from bank failure.
3.11 Product Names. Capitalize product names only when they refer to trade- marked items. Except in advertising, common names following manufacturers’
names are not capitalized:
Magic Marker Dell computer Kleenex tissues
Q-tip swab
Swingline stapler ChapStick lip balm Levi 501 jeans Excel spreadsheet DuPont Teflon Canon camera
3.12 Literary Titles. Capitalize the principal words in the titles of books, maga- zines, newspapers, articles, movies, plays, songs, poems, and reports. Do not capi- talize articles (a, an, the), short conjunctions (and, but, or, nor), and prepositions of fewer than four letters (in, to, by, for) unless they begin or end the title:
Jackson’s What Job Is for You? (Capitalize book titles.)
Gant’s “Software for the Executive Suite” (Capitalize principal words in article titles.)
“Performance Standards to Go By” (Capitalize article titles.)
“The Improvement of Fuel Economy With Alternative Fuels” (Capitalize report titles.)
3.13 Beginning Words. In addition to capitalizing the first word of a complete sentence, capitalize the first word in a quoted sentence, independent phrase, item in an enumerated list, and formal rule or principle following a colon:
The business manager said, “All purchases must have requisitions.”
(Capitalize first word in a quoted sentence.)
Yes, if you agree. (Capitalize an independent phrase.) Some of the duties of the position are as follows:
1. Editing and formatting Word files 2. Arranging video and teleconferences
3. Verifying records, reports, and applications (Capitalize items in a vertical enumerated list.)
One rule has been established through the company: No smoking is allowed in open offices. (Capitalize a rule following a colon.)
3.14 Celestial Bodies. Capitalize the names of celestial bodies such as Mars, Saturn, and Neptune. Do not capitalize the terms earth, sun, or moon unless they appear in a context with other celestial bodies:
Where on earth did you find that manual typewriter?
Venus and Mars are the closest planets to Earth.
3.15 Ethnic References. Capitalize terms that refer to a particular culture, lan- guage, or race:
Asian Hebrew
Caucasian Indian
Latino Japanese
Persian Judeo-Christian
3.16 Seasons. Do not capitalize seasons:
In the fall it appeared that winter and spring sales would increase.
Review Exercise M—Capitalization
In the following sentences, correct any errors that you find in capitalization.
Underscore any lowercase letter that should be changed to a capital letter. Draw a slash (/) through a capital letter that you wish to change to a lowercase letter.
In the space provided, indicate the total number of changes you have made in each sentence. If you make no changes, write 0. When you finish, compare your responses with those provided.
example Bill McAdams, currently Assistant Manager in our Personnel depart- ment, will be promoted to Manager of the Employee Services division.
1. The social security act, passed in 1935, established the present system of social security.
2. Our company will soon be moving its operations to the west coast.
3. Marilyn Hunter, mba, received her bachelor’s degree from Ohio university in athens.
4. The President of Datatronics, Inc., delivered a speech entitled “Taking off into the future.”
5. Please ask your Aunt and your Uncle if they will come to the Attorney’s office at 5 p.m.
6. Your reservations are for flight 32 on american airlines leaving from gate 14 at 2:35 p.m.
7. Once we establish an organizing committee, arrangements can be made to rent holmby hall.
8. Bob was enrolled in history, spanish, business communications, and physical education courses.
9. Either the President or the Vice President of the company will make the deci- sion about purchasing xerox copiers.
10. Rules for hiring and firing Employees are given on page 7, line 24, of the Contract.
11. Some individuals feel that american companies do not have the sense of loy- alty to their employees that japanese companies do.
12. Where on Earth can we find better workers than Robots?
13. The secretary of state said, “we must protect our domestic economy from foreign competition.”
14. After crossing the sunshine skyway bridge, we drove to Southern Florida for our vacation.
15. All marketing representatives of our company will meet in the empire room of the red lion motor inn.
16. Richard Elkins, phd, has been named director of research for spaceage strate- gies, inc.
17. The special keyboard for the Dell Computer must contain greek symbols for Engineering equations.
18. After she received a master’s degree in electrical engineering, Joanne Dudley was hired to work in our product development department.
19. In the Fall our organization will move its corporate headquarters to the franklin building in downtown los angeles.
20. Dean Amador has one cardinal rule: always be punctual.
1. Social Security Act (3.01) 3. MBA University Athens (3.01, 3.05) 5. aunt uncle attorney’s (3.06e, 3.06g) 7. Holmby Hall (3.01) 9. president vice president Xerox (3.06e, 3.11) 11. American Japanese (3.02) 13. We foreign (3.10, 3.13) 15. Empire Room Red Lion Motor Inn (3.01) 17. computer Greek engineering (3.01, 3.02, 3.11) 19. fall Franklin Building Los Angeles (3.01, 3.03, 3.16)
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Cumulative Editing Quiz 7
Use proofreading marks (see Appendix B) to correct errors and omissions in the following sentences. All errors must be corrected to receive credit for the sentence.
Check with your instructor for the answers.
1. I wonder whether president Jackson invited our Marketing Vice President to join the upcoming three hour training session?
2. Our Sales Manager said that you attending the two day seminar is fine how- ever we must find a replacement.
3. The boston marathon is an annual Sporting Event hosted by the City of Boston, Massachusetts on patriot’s day the third monday of April.
4. Steve Chen one of the founders of YouTube hurried to gate 44 to catch flight 246 to north carolina.
5. Jake noticed that the english spoken by asians in hong kong sounded more british than american.
6. Memorial day is a Federal holiday therefore banks will be closed.
7. Because the package was marked fragile the mail carrier handled it careful.
8. Money traders watched the relation of the american dollar to the chinese yuan, the european euro and the japanese yen.
9. My Aunt and me travel South each Winter to vacation in Southern Georgia with our friends the Gonzalez’s.
10. Mary Minnick former Executive Vice President of the Coca-cola company now serves as president of the companys marketing, strategy, and innovation department.
Number Style (4.01–4.13)
Usage and custom determine whether numbers are expressed in the form of fig- ures (for example, 5, 9) or in the form of words (for example, five, nine). Numbers expressed as figures are shorter and more easily understood, yet numbers expressed as words are necessary in certain instances. The following guidelines are observed in expressing numbers in written sentences. Numbers that appear on business forms—such as invoices, monthly statements, and purchase orders—are always expressed as figures.