Welcome to another class. In this class you're going to see three different topics.
Capitalization, abbreviation and indentation. You may think those are just details, but they make
a big difference in your readers' understanding.
Let's start. The first one is the capitalization. Capitalization is when you write the first letter
of a word in upper case and the remaining letters in lowercase.
There are some basic rules for that. Let's see the first one.
You should always start a sentence with a capital letter, like in this example.
"My name is Fernanda". I write "My" with a capital M.
Another rule is to always write the pronoun "I" with capital letter.
It doesn't matter if it's in the beginning, in the middle or in the end of your sentence.
Let's see an example. "My sister and I watch TV". "I" as a capital I.
Another rule is to always write names and titles using uppercase letters.
This is "Mr. Jones", "Mr" with capital M is the title, and "Jones" with the capital J is
his last name. You also should write cities and countries with capital letters.
I live in Bogota, Colombia. "Bogota", the city with a capital B, and "Colombia", the country with a capital
C. In English, you should also write nationalities and languages with a capital letter.
Look at this example. "I am Brazilian and I speak Portuguese".
"Brazilian" is my nationality with a capital B. "Portuguese" is my language with a capital P.
You also write days of the week, months and holidays with capital letters.
"Today is Sunday, February 14th. It's Valentine's Day!"
The second topic we're going to talk about is abbreviation.
Abbreviations are the shortened form of a word, and we're going to start seeing two different types
of abbreviations. The first one is an acronym. We can form an acronym using the first letter of different
words. Let's see some examples. PIN stands for "Personal Identification Number".
You can say an acronym as a word. I can say PIN, NASA, LASER. Similar to an acronym is the initialism.
We also form an initialism using the first letter of other words.
But the difference here is you cannot say an initialism as a word.
In this case, you have to say a letter by letter like in DIY, USA and DVD.
You can also form some abbreviations by removing some letters of one single word.
Let's see some examples. I can make abbreviations with titles like in "Mr." and "Dr.". You can use abbreviations
for times and dates like in "10 a.m.", "Jan." and "Mon."
You can use abbreviations for places like in "5th Ave.", "Main St.". And you also use abbreviations
for units of measurement, like in "20 g", "80 oz".
Remember, those abbreviations are just for writing. When you're going to say the word, you have to
say the complete word. A fun fact about abbreviations is that you have to pay attention
if you're using American English or British English. In American English, you normally put a
period in the end of every abbreviation, like in "Mr.", "Dr." or "Mon.". In British English
you only use the period in the end of the abbreviation
if the last letter of the abbreviation is different from the original word. Let's see some examples.
"Mr" and "Dr" end with an R and the original word also ends with an R, so you don't need to use a period.
But "Monday" ends with a Y, and the abbreviation ends with an N.
In this case, you have to use a period. Indentation is your paragraph format.
There are two different formats you can use. The first one is the first-line indent. In
this format, you have to leave a small space between the edge
and the beginning of your text. You use this kind of format to write biographies, narratives and academic
publications. This kind of format makes your reader read your text in a linear way.
The second type of format is the block paragraph.
As the name says, we write our paragraphs in blocks, and instead of leaving a blank space in
the edge of the paper, you're going to leave a blank space between paragraphs.
This type of format gives the idea to your reader that all the information is inside each paragraph.
These are very common when you're writing guides or manuals. In the resources section, you're going
to find some examples using the first-line indent and the block paragraph.
Also the alphabet in lower case and in upper case.
Our next class is a reading exercise, so do not forget to share all your doubts and comments in the
discussion section. See you next class!