Capital letters

Capital letters must be used:

• At the beginning of a new sentence:

The dog was very friendly.

• To begin a direct quotation, even if it is part of another sentence:

He exclaimed, Why do I have to do another essay?




• For the first person pronoun, I:

I think I will get it done on time.




• For proper names of:
  
  

  people	tribes	planets	historical events
  e.g. Bill	e.g. Ngai Tahu	e.g. Venus	e.g. World War I
  places	languages	weekdays	movements
  e.g. Wellington	e.g. English	e.g. Sunday	e.g. Fascism
  races	religious group	months	NOT for seasons
  e.g. Maori	e.g. Hindus	e.g. April	e.g. winter, summer

• To begin the first word and all important words in titles:

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "A Tale of Two Cities".

Full stops

Full stops must be used:

• At the end of a sentence.
• After an abbreviation, unless the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the word itself:

Note: It is usual to write acronyms (words made up from the initial letters of other words) without full stops:

ANZAC AIDS IBM

• After initials in names: J.E. Smith - although this is disappearing from letters and envelopes.

Exclamation marks

Exclamation marks (!) are used:

• After orders or instructions:

  Look out!

  Run for it!

  Listen to me!

  Don't shout!

• After an outburst of surprise, excitement or strong emotion:

  Wow! What a present!

  Yes! We've won!

  Ouch! That hurts!

Question marks

Question marks (?) are used:

• To show that a direct question has been asked:

  Where are you going?

  What's the time? she asked.

  Have you looked it up in a dictionary? asked the teacher.





N.B. The question mark is placed immediately after the question (and inside the speech marks if it is a question in reported speech). It replaces the full stop.




• Question marks are not used for indirect questions.

  They asked me where I was going.

  She asked him what the time was.

  The teacher asked if he had looked it up in the dictionary.