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EAL · Sentence Structure
Arabic has no capital letters and uses punctuation differently. English examiners deduct marks for missed capitals and run-on sentences. This is mechanical SPaG (spelling, punctuation, grammar) - easy points if you train it.
CAPITALS: start of every sentence. Proper nouns (names of people, places, books, days, months - Macbeth, London, January, Monday, Shakespeare). The pronoun "I" - always capital. Titles in headings (The Tragedy of Macbeth). FULL STOPS end sentences. COMMAS separate items in lists, mark off subordinate clauses, separate the speaker from their words (She said, "I will go."). SEMICOLONS join two complete sentences too closely related to separate: "Macbeth is ambitious; his wife is more so." COLONS introduce lists or explanations. APOSTROPHES show possession ("Macbeth's sword") or contractions ("don't" = "do not"). QUOTATION MARKS surround speech and embedded quotations in essays. AVOID run-on sentences - two complete thoughts joined only by a comma is wrong (with the famous "She came, she saw, she conquered" being a special rhetorical case).
Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare.
Macbeth مسرحية تراجيدية لـ William Shakespeare.
Capitals on play title, author name.
I read the book on Monday.
قريت الكتاب يوم الإثنين.
"I" always capital; "Monday" is a proper noun.
Lady Macbeth says, "Out, damned spot!"
Lady Macbeth تقول: "Out, damned spot!"
Quotation marks + comma + capital at start of speech.
Wrong: macbeth is a tragedy.
Right: Macbeth is a tragedy.
Proper nouns always capitalised.
Wrong: i went to london last week.
Right: I went to London last week.
Both "I" and "London" need capitals.
Wrong: She came she saw she conquered.
Right: She came, she saw, she conquered.
List of past actions needs commas separating them.
Question 1
Fix the capitalisation.
Which version is correctly capitalised?