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Capitalisation question


Laura Corin
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Calvin wants to use the quotation "the eye of heaven" at the beginning of a sentence. I'm assuming he needs to capitalise the 't' even though it's lower case in the original. His sentence runs,

 

"the eye of heaven" is the sun.

 

Should he write it as,

 

"The eye of heaven" is the sun.

 

or,

 

"(T)he eye of heaven" is the sun.

 

Thank you

 

Laura

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I was an editor at a publishing house for several years; here's my professional opinion, with the following caveats:

 

1. This would be the American way of doing it.

2. These rules, unfortunately, are not set in stone. A lot simply depends on which style book you are following.

 

That said, the sentence should read: "[T]he eyes of heaven..." Use brackets to indicate a change you have made to an original source quotation.

Hope that helps.

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That said, the sentence should read: "[T]he eyes of heaven..." Use brackets to indicate a change you have made to an original source quotation.

Hope that helps.

 

I know that round brackets are used more in the UK than in the US, but I'm going to have to find a UK authority for this particular case. My British grammar text doesn't cover this issue.

 

Thanks again,

 

Laura

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I do know that in England square brackets are used to indicate an editorial note. For example, if you need to add 'spelling in context' then one would write [sic] to show that the addition is that of the writer of the article and was not part of the original quote.

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