Grammer Blog on Capitalization.

I have always had a tendency to misuse my capitalization. It's probably something I should have figured out how to do way back in elementary school but for some reason I never got the full picture.
Well according to www.grammarbook.com These are the rules for capitalization:

Rule 1. Capitalize the first word of a quoted sentence.
Rule 2. Capitalize a proper noun.
Rule 3. Capitalize a person's title when it precedes the name. Do not capitalize when the title is acting as a description following the name.
Rule 4. Capitalize the person's title when it follows the name on the address or signature line.
Rule 5. Capitalize the titles of high-ranking government officials when used with or before their names. Do not capitalize the civil title if it is used instead of the name.
Rule 6. Capitalize any title when used as a direct address.
Rule 7. Capitalize points of the compass only when they refer to specific regions.
Rule 8. Always capitalize the first and last words of titles of publications regardless of their parts of speech. Capitalize other words within titles, including the short verb forms Is, Are, and Be.
Rule 9. Capitalize federal or state when used as part of an official agency name or in government documents where these terms represent an official name. If they are being used as general terms, you may use lowercase letters.
Rule 10. You may capitalize words such as department, bureau, and office if you have prepared your text in the following way: The Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) has some jurisdiction over Indian lands. The Bureau is finding its administrative role to be challenging.
Rule 11. Do not capitalize names of seasons.
Rule 12. Capitalize the first word of a salutation and the first word of a complimentary close.
Rule 13. Capitalize words derived from proper nouns.
Rule 14. Capitalize the names of specific course titles.
Rule 15. After a sentence ending with a colon, do not capitalize the first word if it begins a list.
Rule 16. Do not capitalize when only one sentence follows a sentence ending with a colon.
Rule 17. Capitalize when two or more sentences follow a sentence ending with a colon.


I had no idea there were so many rules having to do with capitalization!