Students should accurately apply the rules for capitalizing official titles of people, holidays, and geographical names and places. Students must identify the difference between proper nouns (e.g., Dr. Ramirez, Halloween, the Mississippi River) and common nouns (e.g., the doctor, his birthday, the river) and determine when to capitalize the formal names of people, holidays, and places. Students should review their written drafts, evaluate the need for or use of capitalization, and make necessary edits to correct errors.

During the editing stage of the writing process, students further improve their drafts and often prepare for publication by correcting conventions errors. Ensuring that the standards of the English language have been applied correctly helps the audience more easily comprehend the information because they do not have to interrupt their thinking to determine what the writer intended to say.

standard rules of the English language, including written mechanics such as punctuation, capitalization, spelling, paragraphing, etc. and written/oral grammar such as parts of speech, word order, subject-verb agreement, and sentence structure