Question

Select the sentence with the correct punctuation marks:
president william mckinley established the USA as a world power

• A. President William McKinley established the USA as a world power.
• B. President William Mckinley established the USa as a world power.
• C. president William Mckinley established the USa as a world power.
• D. President William Mckinley established the U.S.A as a world power.

Answer 1

The correct option is A President William McKinley established the USA as a world power.

Some of the key rules of punctuation in English are:

The first letter of the sentence has to be capitalised.

The first letter of the title of government officials like 'President' is capitalised when the word is used with or before their names. All proper names have to be capitalised. Acronyms of long words are capitalised.

In the given sentence, USA is an acronym for 'The United States of America'. Hence, it has to be used in capitals. 'William McKinley' is the proper name of a President of the United States of America. Hence, the letters, 'w', 'm' as well as 'k' of William McKinley have to be capitalised. As the title 'President' is followed by the name of the president, the letter 'p' has to be capitalised.

Option A is correct as all the required letters as stated above are capitalised.

In both options B and C, the letter 'k' of McKinley is not capitalised. The letter 'a' of USA is also not capitalised. Further, in option C, the first letter of the sentence i. letter 'p' of the word, 'President' is not capitalised. Hence, options B and C are incorrect.

Option D is incorrect as the letter 'k' of McKinley is not capitalised. Further, there is no necessity to add a period (i.e dot) between the letters of USA.