English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003

Capitalize Names of Organizations, Institutions, Courses, and Famous Buildings
Chapter 11 Capitalization and Abbreviations
Part 4 A Writers Tools

Since names of organizations, institutions, courses, and famous buildings are all proper nouns, they get capitalized.

Do not capitalize the articles: a, an, the.

Do not capitalize prepositions: at, by, for, of, in, up, on, so, on, to, etc.

Do not capitalize conjunctions: and, as, but, if, or, nor.

1. Capitalize the names of organizations.

The Boy Scouts of America  Rotary International

The Red Cross    General Motors

2. Capitalize the names of institutions.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

The United Nations

3. Capitalize the names of courses.

Introduction to Biology (but not biology)

Mathematics 203 (but not mathematics)

4. Capitalize the names of buildings.

The Empire State Building the Sears Tower