Chapter 7 Verbal and Written Communications 165
A contraction is a shortened form of a word or term. To form a contrac-
tion, one or more words are omitted and replaced with an apostrophe. This
creates a single word.
Example: Rock ‘n’ roll became popular in the ’50s.
Dr. Hartman didn’t know the patient had high blood pressure until
the patient’s test results were returned.
Quotation Marks. Quotation marks enclose short, direct quotes and some
titles (such as chapter titles or article titles). A direct quote is a restatement
of someone’s exact words. A quote does not have to be a complete sen-
tence. Rather, it can be a word or phrase within a sentence that was said or
written by another person. If you have a long quote (several sentences in
length or greater), it should be set apart from the paragraph. Long quotes
that are set apart should not be enclosed in quotation marks.
Examples: “Why do you think you would be a good choice for
this job?” asked the interviewer.
What did the administrator mean by “charitable giving”?
Capitalization Rules
The following rules relate to capitalization. Capitaliza-
tion is the use of an uppercase letter for the fi rst letter of a
word and lowercase for the remaining letters.
• A sentence always begins with a capital letter.
• Capital letters are used for headings in reports, arti-
cles, newsletters, and other documents. Capital letters
are used for titles of books, magazines, and movies.
Examples: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
National Geographic
• Capitalize the fi rst word, and all other important
words in a heading or title (conjunctions and preposi-
tions are normally not capitalized).
Example: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• Proper nouns must always be capitalized.
Examples: Dr. Lang is my physician. I love Japanese
food.
• Capitalize the name of months, days, cities, states, and
countries (Figure 7.19).
Examples: January, Monday, New York, Great Britain
• Some abbreviations use capital letters (Figure 7.20).
Examples: HIPAA, UCLA, HTML, WI
contraction
a shortened form of a word
or term; one or more letters
are omitted and replaced
with an apostrophe to cre-
ate one word
capitalization
the use of an uppercase
letter for the fi rst letter of a
word, and lowercase for the
remaining letters; used for
proper nouns
Olinchuk/Shutterstock.com
Figure 7.19 The names of states and cities are
proper nouns and must be capitalized.