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According to the fifth edition of Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference, there are seven situations in which you need to capitalize a word.

1.1. Capitalize proper nouns and words derived from them; do not capitalize common nouns.

Examples:

 Proper nouns: Spanish cuisine, Book of Revelation, Mother visited them.

Common nouns: cuisine from the peninsula, one religious book, the kids were visited by their mother.

1.2. Capitalize months, holidays, and the days of the week.

Examples: June, Christmas, Tuesday.

2. Capitalize titles of persons when used as part of a proper name.

Examples: Dr. Smith, Prof. Hamilton, Chief Marshall.

3. Capitalize all major words in titles and subtitles of works; do not capitalize conjunctions, prepositions, or articles if they are not first words.

Examples: The Young and the Restless, A Manual for Writers of English.

4. The first word of a sentence is also capitalized, even if it’s a proposition, an article, or a conjunction.

Examples: Of Love and Trust was a good book, The day of the concert they suited up.

5. When quoting a sentence, capitalize the first letter; but if you are quoting a phrase, don’t do it.

Examples: Cresswel suggested that “Introductions should be written at the end of the research process”.

Cresswel suggested that introductions have to be “highly compelling pieces of text”.

6. Capitalize words after a colon only when they introduce an independent clause.

Example: The lack of privacy is disappearing people’s boundaries: This is something done voluntarily by social media agents through the public platforms.

7. If you use abbreviations for organizations or corporations, capitalize them.

Examples: FBI, NSA, KQEP.

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Additionally, according to the APA Publication Manual there are six cases in which is necessary to capitalize words.

1. a) First word of a complete sentence; b) first word after a colon that begins a complete sentence.

Examples:

1. The study showed no correlation between the variables.
2. The study showed a strong correlation between the variables: The outcome confirmed the expectations.

2. (a) Major words in titles and headings; (b) four letter words; (c) verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns; (d) in hyphenated words, capitalize both words; (e) words after colons and dashes; (f) major words in headings and subheadings; (g) major words in table titles and figures; (h) references to titles of section within the same article.

Examples:

1. The Time of Physics
2. Review of the CSS File Structure
3. Running on Empty: A Bold Chronicle of the American Diet and its Consequences
4. Meta-Analysis procedure in Psychology
5. Radical-Unionist Coalition: An Effort to Debunk the Hegemony
6. Materials and Procedures
7. Details of an Experimental Laboratory Set-Up
8. As shown in the Methods section

Exceptions: (a) Do not capitalize conjunctions, articles, short prepositions; (b) in titles of books and articles, in reference lists capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or em dash, and proper nouns.

3. (a) Proper nouns; (b) trade names; (c) names of university departments; (d) complete names of academic courses.
4. Foucaultian approach
5. Coca-Cola
6. Faculty of Law
7. Rhetoric and Writing Studies 1301

Exceptions: do not capitalize names of laws, theories, or hypotheses.

4. (a) Nouns followed by numerals; (b) nouns followed by letters.

Examples:

1. On Year 2 of the study
2. On Document X

5. (a) Titles of tests.

Example:

1. Graduate Record Examinations

6. (a) Names of factors.

Example:

1. Factor 11 and Component 12 were tested in the first trial. 

Works consulted:

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Hacker, D. (2003). A Writer’s Reference (5th ed.). Bedford St. Martin’s: Boston.