During the editing stage of the writing process, students further improve their drafts and often prepare them for publication by correcting conventions errors. Ensuring that the standard rules of the English language have been correctly applied helps readers more easily comprehend the information because they are not having to interrupt their thinking to determine what the writer intended to say.

Unlike a common noun which names general items (e.g., friends, states, buildings), proper nouns name specific people, places, or things, and they always begin with a capital letter (e.g., Kylie, Texas, Eiffel Tower). Students should understand that if they do not correctly capitalize proper nouns, they risk their readers not understanding that an unfamiliar word in the text is meant to refer to something specific and is not a misspelling or misuse of some other intended word or slang. For example, if a student writes, “I really want to go to mars,” and the reader does not know what Mars is, they might assume it means sleep, misinterpreting the message completely. If Mars is capitalized, the reader can infer the writer is referring to visiting a specific place, even if they have never heard of that place.

standard rules of the English language, including written mechanics such as punctuation, capitalization, spelling, paragraphing, etc. and written/oral grammar such as parts of speech, word order, subject-verb agreement, and sentence structure