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A species name always consists of two parts called the binomen:

 Homo is the genus name, it can stand alone, as in "I am an example of the genus Homo".

 "sapiens" in Homo sapiens can never stand alone. "sapiens" is the specific epithet and must always be paired with the genus name to be a species name.

 You can abbreviate Homo for the species name, as in H. sapiens.

 In all cases the genus and species names must be either underlined or in italics - that is how we tell it's a species or genus name.

 I expect that you will follow this convention in your term papers.

 Note that none of this applies to other levels in the Linnean heirarchy - not to families, orders, classes, phyla or kingdoms. These are capitalized as proper names, such as in the Class Mammalia.