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Last updated on Jun 27, 2024

Title Capitalization Rules: Learn Which Words To Capitalize

Like many aspects of the English language, title capitalization rules can seem confusing and unintuitive. While the words that are (and are not) capitalized in a title aren’t always consistent, it’s really not as complicated as you might think.

Whether you’re figuring out what to call your novel , writing a headline for a blog post or article, or referring to a movie, song, or other published work, you’ll need to follow standard title capitalization rules. To help you along, let’s break down the basic rules and explain some exceptions. 

These are the three title capitalization rules you’ll need to remember:

• Capitalize the first and last words of a title
• Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

1. Capitalize the first and last words of a title

The simplest rule you can follow with complete certainty is this: the first and last words of a title are always capitalized. It doesn’t matter what length the title is or what grammatical role the word plays. From the humble article “the” to longer nouns like “tyrannosaurus,” you’re 100% safe capitalizing the first and last word.

Example: Andy Williams’s 1966 hit single, “ Music to Watch Girls By ”

All style guides agree on this rule, and it’s because it just makes sense. By capitalizing the first and last words, you create a visual mark that shows the reader where the title begins and ends. Even if it’s used within a longer sentence, it can’t be confused with the text surrounding it.

💡 Note: When words are capitalized to form a title, their format is called “title case” or “headline case.” This is in contrast to “sentence case,” which is what you’ll see in this very paragraph.

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Capitalize the first word of subtitles, too

The rule for subtitles is very simple: the subtitle’s first word is also always capitalized, with no exceptions. Subtitles, written after a colon, are especially common in factual and academic works . 

Example: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s classic work of feminist literary criticism,  “The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination .”  

If this title was written in sentence case, the first word after the colon would not normally be capitalized. And if we were following rule number 3 (spoiler alert), the word “the” would be in lowercase.

If you’re worried about your institution’s style guide of choice, you can sigh with relief. Capitalizing the first word of a subtitle is one of those rules where APA, MLA, Chicago, and AP style guides are in beautiful, unanimous agreement.

This is not the only rule they agree on — the next one is also universal.

2. Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

Many common parts of speech are always capitalized in a title. Let’s take a quick look at them, one by one.

The ‘action words’ of language, verbs are capitalized in every style guide. This also applies to phrasal verbs, where a verb and a preposition are used together, like “Get Up,” “Stand Up,” “Let Go,” and “Carry Out.”

A commonly asked question is whether the word “is” needs to be capitalized. “Is” and its cousins (“I am,” “you are,” etc.) are all conjugated forms of the verb “to be,” so the answer is yes. The same applies to the verb “do” and its variations “did” and “does.”

Here are a few examples of book titles that include verbs:

• This  Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• Where'd You  Go , Bernadette by Maria Semple
• Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black
• I'll  Tell You in Person by Chloe Caldwell
• Do You Want to Start a Scandal by Tessa Dare
• History  Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

All style guides agree on capitalizing pronouns in titles. If you’re a native speaker, it’s possible you assume the term simply refers to “he,” “she,” “they,” and “his,” “hers,” and “theirs.” These are pronouns indeed, but there are many more types.

We won’t dwell (no one likes a grammar lesson), but to learn more about further types of pronouns, like relative, indefinite, demonstrative, or interrogative pronouns, you can check out Thesaurus.com’s entry on pronoun types . Fun fact: words like “someone,” “whenever,” “whose,” and “whom” are pronouns, too . Hopefully, this knowledge will come in handy when you next capitalize a tricky title.

Here are a few examples of book titles with pronouns:

• Roll of Thunder, Hear  My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• Guess How Much  I Love You  by Sam McBratney
• For  Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 
• Go Tell  It on the Mountain by James Baldwin 
• Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon

If you  do  happen to like grammar lessons, however, check out this article about the Oxford comma to learn more about when and how to use it like a pro.

Nouns and adjectives

You already know these ones, so we won’t patronize you. They’re also straightforward when it comes to capitalization: nouns and adjectives are capitalized in all style guides. Wonderful, right?

Let’s look at a few title examples that feature nouns:

• I Know Why the  Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• How the  García Girls Lost Their Accents  by Julia Alvarez
• If on a  Winter’s Night a Traveler  by Italo Calvino
• Diary of a Young Naturalist  by Dara McAnulty

And some book titles that capitalize adjectives:

• In  Cold Blood  by Truman Capote
• A Cavern of  Black Ice by J. V. Jones
• Understanding Comics: The  Invisible Art  by Scott McCloud
• The  Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  by Mark Haddon

You may know adverbs as words that end in -ly . They describe the  way or manner in which something is done or happens. Just don’t forget that adverbs of manner aren’t the only type of adverb. 

If your title includes any of the words below, you’re dealing with adverbs of frequency, time, place, or degree:

You don’t need to remember what category each adverb falls under — you just need to be able to recognize them as an adverb, since all adverbs are capitalized across all style guides.

Here are a few titles that feature adverbs, whether they end in -ly or not:

• “Isla and the Happily Ever After ” by Stephanie Perkins
• “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” by Iris Murdoch
• “ Tomorrow , and Tomorrow , and Tomorrow ” by Gabrielle Zevin
• “A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York” by Anjelica Huston

So far, we’ve looked at the two major rules where all style guides agree: capitalizing the first and final words of a title, as well as any “principal” or important words, like nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The next rule is where it gets a little bit more complicated.

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3. Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

Unless you’re working with a style guide that says otherwise (or if they’re the first or final word in a title), the following types of words are not capitalized:

• Articles — the tiny words that come before nouns to indicate whether it’s a general concept or a particular, specific thing, e.g., “ the garden” vs. “ a garden”
• Prepositions — words that precede nouns to show direction or place, or to establish a relationship between two things, e.g., “ opposite the library,” “ next to the cat” 
• Coordinating conjunctions — words that link two parts of a sentence that can stand on their own, e.g., “I was tired. Alice went to bed” vs. “I was tired and Alice went to bed.”

Here are the words that fall under these categories:

📚 For more examples and information on prepositions, head to this page by the University of Ottawa.

Here are a few book titles that do not capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions (unless they are the first or last words of the title):

• In Search  of Lost Time  by Marcel Proust
• Crime  and Punishment  by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Catcher  in the Rye  by J. D. Salinger
• The Portrait  of a Lady  by Henry James
• Again,  but Better  by Christine Riccio
• Subordinating conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions, on the other hand, are capitalized. These words introduce a new part to the sentence dependent on the main sentence, or clause. Subordinating conjunctions include: if, since, as, when, although, while, after, before, until, because.

Because titles are not typically multi-clause sentences, it’s harder to intuit which group a conjunction belongs to. The simplest way to know when to capitalize conjunctions is to just remember which are coordinating and which subordinating. 

Subordinating conjunctions do get capitalized, as in these title examples:

• Things Have Gotten Worse  Since We Last Spoke  by Eric LaRocca
• As Good  As Dead  by Holly Jackson
• What If ?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions  by Randall Munroe
• Live Right and Find Happiness ( Although Beer Is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings  by Dave Barry

4. When in doubt, refer to your style guide

If you're writing for a specific institution, keep their style guide bookmarked. For your convenience, here's what the four most commonly used style guides in North America require when it comes to capitalizing titles correctly:

Chicago Manual of Style

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

Don’t capitalize:

• Articles, prepositions of any length, and coordinating conjunctions
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure to Launch” )

Modern Languages Association (MLA) Handbook

American psychological association (apa) publication manual.

• Words that consist of more than four letters, even conjunctions and prepositions
• Words shorter than four letters

The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook

• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure To Launch” )
• Articles and prepositions shorter than four letters
• Coordinating conjunctions

You’ll notice that the first two, Chicago and MLA, are the same — whereas AP and APA share an enthusiasm for capitalizing words longer than four letters.

Now compare these book titles:

See the difference? 

• Chicago and MLA don’t capitalize “along” because it’s a preposition. 
• AP and APA do capitalize it because it’s longer than four letters long. 
• “For” is a coordinating conjunction (so lowercase for Chicago and MLA) and not long enough to be capitalized in AP and APA.
• All four style guides capitalize the first and last words of the title, as well as the first word of the subtitle.

🎯 Want to test yourself? Head over to our book title generator and give it a whirl. Write down what titles you’re given and then ask yourself how they’d be formatted for each style guide. 

Those are all the rules, so you can go ahead and capitalize your title. Beyond your title, if you’ve got a whole manuscript in need of polishing, consider hiring a copy editor to take care of the finer details.

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If you want to expand your knowledge of niche linguistic matters even further, head over to the world of punctuation with our post on using hyphens and dashes correctly. Just don’t forget your linguist geek hat.

Continue reading

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Subject Guides

• Starting Your Research
• In-Text Citations (APA)
• Formatting the Reference Page (APA)
• Citing Books (APA)
• Citing Articles (APA)
• Citing Websites (APA)
• Citing Videos (APA)
• In-Text Citations (MLA)
• Capitalization and Styling for Titles (MLA)
• Formatting the Works Cited Page (MLA)
• Citing Books (MLA)
• Citing Articles (MLA)
• Citing Websites (MLA)
• Citing Videos (MLA)
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Library Hours

Capitalization of Titles in MLA

Capitalizing titles.

When you are writing the title of a work in an MLA-formatted paper, the rules can appear confusing. However, they are simple once you get used to working with them. If the title on the cover and title page do not match, use the one from the title page. You will probably capitalize most of the words in the title.

Here is what you capitalize:

• The first and last word of the title
• Verbs and adverbs
• Nouns and pronouns
• Subordinating conjunctions (for example,  as ,  because ,  if )

Here is what you don't capitalize:

• a, an, and, but, nor, the, so, to, yet
• prepositions (words like  as, between,  or  in )

If you are not sure what part of speech a word is, online dictionaries such as  Merriam-Webster  will tell you.

Note : There are two exception to the capitalization rules. First, capitalize any word if it's the last word in the title. For example, you would write the book title  Island Between  with  between  capitalized even though it's a preposition. The second exception is that you capitalize anything that follows a colon. Here is an example:  Citations: A Study of Good Practices . Normally, you wouldn't capitalize  a , but in this case you would.

Capitalizing Quotes

According to MLA style, how you capitalize words in quotes depends upon the context.

Quotes in Text

Whenever you quote a text, you may need to change the capitalization used in the quote. If your sentence before the quote uses a word like  says ,  states ,  writes , etc., you will want to capitalize the first word you quote. If you do change a lower case word to upper case, put the capitalized letter in brackets. This tells your reader that you changed the text a little. Here is an example:

Original sentence: Cats are affectionate, and dogs are playful.

Example one: Smith says "Cats are affectionate."

Example two: Smith says "[D]ogs are affectionate."

If your sentence uses a word that isn't  says ,  writes , etc., you will want to make the first word of the quote lower case, unless it is a proper noun like someone's name. Here is an example:

Example one: Smith's research determined that "[c]ats are affectionate."

Example two: Smith noted that "dogs are affectionate."

Block Quotes

The first word of block quotes are always capitalized, and brackets used if you have to change the first word from lower case to capitalized.

Styling Titles in MLA

How to style a title in mla.

When using the MLA citation method, there are two different ways to style titles you write in your text. They will be either italicized or in quotation marks. As a general rule, complete works (like a book, play, or movie) would be italicized, but works that appear inside another work (such as a short story that appears in an anthology of stories, or an article from a scholarly journal) will be put in quotation marks. Here is an example:

Smith's short story "The Happy Dog" first appeared in his book of collected stories  Dog and Cat Tales .

There are exceptions, however. If a work would normally be italicized, but appears inside another work, it stays italicized. For example, a publisher may print a collection of short novels or plays inside one large book. Because novels and plays are normally italicized, they stay italicized even though they're part of a larger work.

Here is a brief list of what is italicized, and what is put in quotation marks:

• << Previous: In-Text Citations (MLA)
• Next: Formatting the Works Cited Page (MLA) >>
• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 11:55 AM
• URL: https://midland.libguides.com/subject-guides/all-guides

Formatting Titles

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published October 2, 2020 · Updated November 5, 2020

Let’s face it: For whatever reason, formatting titles can be confusing, especially if you think about all the titles that need proper formatting–the title placed on the title page of a paper, the title of a journal article mentioned in the body of a paper, the title of a newspaper or a website on the list of references. There are titles of books and titles of chapters in those books; titles of blogs and titles of blog entries. Some titles are italicized and some are put in quotation marks. Titles on the list of references require formatting–some titles use title case, some sentence case; some titles are italicized and some are not. And then there are those situations where titles are used in in-text citations–some titles are truncated and italicized; some are put in quotation marks–you get the idea. 

First off, I am not going to address how to format titles when citing in the paper or listing on the list of references—those are formatting guidelines for another time. I am going to focus on titles on the title page, the first page of the paper, and within a paper. Here is what you need to keep straight:

Titles require special capitalization called title case. Title case requires one to

• capitalize the first letter of the first and last words of a title;
• capitalize the first letter of all verbs;
• capitalize all words of four or more letters;
• capitalize the first letter of all other words except a, an, the, short conjunctions such as “for, and, but,” and prepositions of fewer than four letters (words like “up, in, off”);
• capitalize the first letter of a word following a colon or dash;
• capitalize the first letter of a subtitle. 

When a title appears on the title page of an APA Style 7th edition student paper, that title should be centered, bolded, and in title case—no need to use all caps, no need to italicize or underline, and no need to use quotation marks or place a period at the end. 

Simply type out the title using title case and bold it–that’s it.

On the first page of the essay, center and repeat the title, bold it, and use title case. Again, do not use any special formatting. Do not use a bigger font size or style. Do not underline or italicize and so forth. Just use title case, bold, and center the title on the first page of the essay.

Easy enough, right?

Titles that appear within an essay require special formatting in addition to title case. If the title is for an article—content that is part of a greater whole—then the title should have quotation marks around it. If the title is for a book, journal, newspaper, or some other whole work, then the title is italicized.

Let’s say you have an article titled “The New Coffee Culture” that appears in the journal Studies in Popular Culture . Let’s also say that for whatever reason, you name both titles in the body of your paper. The article “The New Coffee Culture” appears in the journal Studies in Popular Culture , so the article is content that appears in a greater whole, right? 

Both titles would be in title case. The article “The New Coffee Culture” would have quotation marks around it, and the title of the journal, Studies in Popular Culture , would be italicized. 

I hope this blogcast clarifies exactly what you need to do when formatting titles in typical usage situations in APA style. 

Until next week–

Kurtis Clements

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The Editor’s Manual

Free learning resource on English grammar, punctuation, usage, and style.

• Capitalization

Title Case: Capitalization of Titles, Headings, and Headlines

Capitalize the first, last, and all major words in a book title, headline, or first-level heading. Major words are all words except articles ( a , an , the ), prepositions ( on , in , of , etc.), coordinating conjunctions ( and , or , but , etc.), and the word to . This capitalization style is called title case .

• Title case: T he C urious I ncident of the D og in the N ight- T ime
• Title case: T he S trange C ase of D r. J ekyll and M r. H yde

Capitalize lower-level headings using sentence case , in which you capitalize only the words you would normally capitalize in a sentence.

• Sentence case: T he curious incident of the dog in the night-time
• Sentence case: T he strange case of D r. J ekyll and M r. H yde

Style guides like the AP Stylebook , Chicago Manual of Style , APA Publication Manual , and MLA Handbook prescribe additional rules, discussed in this article.

Title case is also called headline style or up style: you see it used in headings and titles of books, movies, TV shows, articles, and other works. Sentence case, also called sentence style or down style, is used for second-level headings and lower. News headlines have traditionally been capitalized using title case, although these days, sentence case is often used, especially online.

Title case: General rules

Here are the general rules for capitalizing titles and headings:

• Capitalize the first word and last word of a title.
• Capitalize all major words, which are all words except articles ( a , an , the ), prepositions (e.g., on , in , of , at ), and coordinating conjunctions ( and , or , but , and nor ; also for , yet , and so when used as conjunctions).
• Always lowercase the word to .
• Capitalize the first element of a hyphenated term. Capitalize any subsequent elements only if they are major words.
• Capitalize the first word of a subheading that appears after a colon.
• Break a rule if you need to—for example, if a preposition is emphasized in a title, capitalize it.

Major words are all words except articles , prepositions , and coordinating conjunctions .

• L ove in the T ime of C holera
• T hree M en in a B oat
• P ride and P rejudice
• R equiem for a D ream
• C atch M e I f Y ou C an
• The P ortrait of a L ady
• The W ay W e L ive N ow
• The G irl W ho P layed with F ire
• M en without W omen
• The G round beneath H er F eet
• E verything I s I lluminated

The first and last words of a title are always capitalized, no matter what they are.

• A Clockwork Orange
• T he Mill on the Floss
• I n Search of Lost Time
• T hrough a Glass Darkly
• F rom Blood and Ash
• B ut What If There’s No Chimney?
• A nd Then There Were None
• Something to Answer F or
• Something to Believe I n
• All We Dream O f
• Where We Come F rom

It may not always be clear at first glance whether a word should be capitalized. Check what function it serves in the title.

• Capitalize over as an adverb , but lowercase it as a preposition. Adverb: The Soup Boiled O ver Preposition: The Light o ver London

The word to is lowercased, regardless of what function it serves in the sentence (unless it is the first or last word).

• Train t o Busan
• Zero t o One: Notes on Startups, or How t o Build the Future
• A Good Man Is Hard t o Find

In a hyphenated term, the first prefix or word is always capitalized, but the following words are capitalized only if they are major words.

• The M an- E ater of Malgudi Eater is a noun and should be capitalized.
• The Academy’s O ut- o f- U niform Procedure Lowercase of , which is a preposition, but capitalize uniform , a noun.
• The S tep- b y- S tep Guide to Finding Fairies
• The T hirty- N ine Steps
• The A nti- I nflammatory Diet Cookbook
• Originals: How N on- C onformists Move the World
• The F ire- B reathing Dragon

Any subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is always capitalized.

• Computer: A History of the Information Machine
• The Lord of the Rings: T he Return of the King
• The View from the Cheap Seats: S elected Nonfiction
• A Memoir: O f Mermaids and Waterfalls

Break a rule if you must. If a word is emphasized in a title, capitalize it, even if it is not a major word.

• How to Be the Go- T o Person in Your Organization
• A Run- I n with Religion and Other True Stories

Capitalize all the words that make up a phrasal verb , even a word that is a preposition.

• What to Do When You R un I nto Someone You Don’t Like
• How to S et U p Your Spaceship’s AI
• Don’t P ut O ff Being Happy

Be and is in a title

Verbs are major words and should be capitalized, including the be verb in all its forms: be , is , are , was , were .

• There Will B e Blood
• Tender I s the Night
• Where the Wild Things A re
• Then She W as Gone
• Their Eyes W ere Watching God

Also capitalize the have and do verbs in all their forms: have , has , had , do , does , did .

• The Heart H as Its Reasons
• Owls D o Cry
• What Katy Did
• Inequality: What Can Be Done ?

That in a title

The word that is always a major word and should be capitalized.

• Companies T hat Fleece Their Customers
• The House T hat Jack Built

It and me in a title

Capitalize all pronouns , including it , my , me , we , our, you , he , his , she , her , they , them , and who .

• How I t All Began
• Some of M y Favorite Things
• The Best W e Can Do
• The General in H is Labyrinth
• The Woman W ho Did

No and not in a title

Capitalize the words no and not (a determiner and an adverb) whenever these words appear in titles.

• Beasts of N o Nation
• Oranges Are N ot the Only Fruit

AP and APA style

The APA Publication Manual (used in academic editing, especially the social sciences) and the AP Stylebook (preferred in journalism, media, and corporate communication) both specify one major exception to the general rules :

Capitalize all words of four letters or more, even if they are prepositions.

• One Flew O ver the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Girl Who Played W ith Fire
• Men W ithout Women
• The Ground B eneath Her Feet
• So Far F rom God
• Once U pon a Time in the West
• Much Ado A bout Nothing
• The Light B etween Oceans
• The Cat Who Walks T hrough Walls
• A Woman U nder the Influence
• Three Billboards O utside Ebbing, Missouri
• The World U ntil Yesterday
• The Man i n the Brown Suit
• The Wizard o f Oz
• A Home f or Lunatics
• The Woman o n the Beach

Thus, in APA and AP style, words four letters or longer are always capitalized, regardless of function. Note that the other general rules apply as usual. Capitalize any major words, even if they are three letters or shorter: be , has , had , do , did , me , who , my , etc.

• We Should All B e Feminists
• If I H ad Your Face
• Marley and M e
• The Man W ho Sold H is Ferrari

Another exception is that all conjunctions three letters or shorter are lowercased. Thus, in APA and AP style, lowercase not only the seven coordinating conjunctions ( and , or , but , nor , for , yet , so ) but also subordinating conjunctions up to three letters long (which pretty much boils down to the word if ).

• Pride a nd Prejudice
• I’d Tell You I Love You, b ut Then I’d Have to Kill You
• Catch Me i f You Can

Also, do lowercase articles and any prepositions up to three letters long: a , an , the , for , in , of , to , etc.

• The Bridge o n t he River Kwai
• Stranger i n a Strange Land
• The Catcher i n t he Rye
• A House f or Mr. Biswas

Finally, in AP Style, the first and last words are capitalized as usual, regardless of length.

• A n American Tragedy
• T he Invisible Man
• A s I Lay Dying
• O f Human Bondage
• O n the Waterfront
• F or the Green Planet
• These Times We Live I n

However, in APA style, the last word is capitalized only if it is a major word or longer than three letters.

• Something to Answer f or
• These Times We Live i n In APA style, lowercase prepositions, unless they are four letters or longer.

Chicago style

According to the Chicago Manual of Style , the conjunctions to be lowercased are and , or , nor , but , and for . All others are capitalized. Thus, the words yet and so are capitalized regardless of function. The word if is also always capitalized.

• Sense a nd Sensibility
• The Hobbit, o r There a nd Back Again
• Though We Be Dead, Y et Our Day Will Come
• Even I f We Break

In a hyphenated phrase, if the first element is merely a prefix that could not stand by itself (e.g., anti- , pre- , non- ), don’t capitalize the second part.

• The A nti- i nflammatory Diet Cookbook
• The Thirty- N ine Steps The word thirty can stand by itself, so capitalize nine as well.

Remember to capitalize not just the first but also the last word of a title or heading, even if it is not a major word.

• The Things We Believe I n Capitalize the last word, even a preposition.
• Only One Way T hrough
• It’s You I’m Dreaming O f

The MLA Handbook (used in academic writing for the humanities) specifies no exceptions to the general rules .

• T hese T imes W e L ive I n
• A H eartbreaking W ork of S taggering G enius
• T he M oon I s a H arsh M istress

Differences in AP, APA, Chicago, MLA rules

As you can see, style manuals differ in their guidelines on what qualifies as a “major” word worthy of capitalization in title case. Here’s a quick summary of the key differences between the popular styles.

In both AP and APA styles, capitalize prepositions four letters or longer. In Chicago and MLA , lowercase all prepositions, regardless of length.

• APA, AP: The Girl F rom Mars Chicago, MLA: The Girl f rom Mars
• APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: The Woman i n Red

Lowercase not just coordinating but also subordinating conjunctions shorter than four letters in AP and APA styles; capitalize all subordinating conjunctions in Chicago and MLA.

• APA, AP: Isolate i f You Are Sick Chicago, MLA: Isolate I f You Are Sick

Capitalize the words yet and so in Chicago style. In the other styles, lowercase them when they are used as conjunctions, but capitalize when they are adverbs.

• Chicago: Broke Y et Happy APA, AP, MLA: Broke y et Happy
• Chicago, APA, AP, MLA: Am I Normal Y et?

Capitalize the last word of the title in AP, Chicago, and MLA styles even if it is not a major word; in APA, capitalize the last word only if it is a major word. (But remember that the APA Publication Manual considers all words four letters or longer major words.)

• Chicago, MLA, AP: Something to Answer F or APA: Something to Answer f or
• Chicago, MLA, APA, AP: The Places We Come F rom

In all four styles, capitalize the first word (whatever it may be), and lowercase articles.

• APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: T he Girl Who Found a Dragon Egg

Sentence case

In sentence case, a title is written as a sentence would be: the first word and all proper nouns are capitalized. This capitalization style is generally used for headings that are second level or lower. These days, it is also increasingly being used for online news headlines.

• C lear light of day
• W e need to talk about K evin
• T he quiet A merican

The first word of a subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is also capitalized.

• Traveling with ghosts: A memoir
• Understanding comics: T he invisible art

If a title begins with a numeral, lowercase the next word.

• 27 b ooks to read before you die
• P ractice guidelines for the pickling of pineapples: 2019 u pdate

Professional and social titles that precede a name are capitalized as well.

• The island of D octor Moreau
• The strange life of P resident Farley
• The story of F ather Femy and his music

For more on which words to capitalize in a sentence, see this article on the rules of capitalization .

Share this article

In title case, all major words are capitalized.

In sentence case, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.

The word it , which is a pronoun, is capitalized in title case.

The words we (a pronoun) and be (a verb) are capitalized in title case.

The word a , which is an article, is lowercased unless it is the first word of the title.

The words let (a verb) and me (a pronoun) are capitalized in title case.

The first word of a subtitle following a colon is capitalized in both title case and sentence case.

Home / Guides / Capitalization

Capitalization

Capitalization rules depend on what academic citation or paper-formatting style you are using. Most academic style manuals use two main capitalization styles: sentence-style capitalization and title-style capitalization (also called “headline-style”). However, style manuals differ on when to use the two capitalization styles.

Below are specific capitalization best practices for MLA format (9th ed.), APA 7 format , and Chicago/Turabian style.

Sentence-Style Capitalization

• the first letter of the first word of a sentence
• names and initials for people
• names for days and months
• proper nouns
• adjectives formed with proper nouns (e.g., Freudian psychoanalysis)
• the subject pronoun I
• titles that come directly before a person’s name (e.g., President Biden)

Sentence-Style Capitalization Examples:

In the text:

Professor Jones assigned two essays this month, one on the Civil War and one on Abraham Lincoln.

Use sentence-style capitalization for source titles in reference lists when following APA 7 style:

A consensus statement on trauma mental health: The New Haven competency conference process and major findings

Title-Style Capitalization or Headline-Style Capitalization

• the first word of the title
• the last word of the title
• other major words
• Articles, such as a , an , and the
• Conjunctions , such as for , and , not , but , or , or yet (FANBOYS)
• Prepositions , such as against , between , in , of , or to

Title-Style Capitalization Example:

Use title-style or headline-style capitalization for source titles in the text when following APA 7, MLA 9, or Chicago styles, and for source titles in the references in MLA 9 or Chicago:

A Consensus Statement on Trauma Mental Health: The New Haven Competency Conference Process and Major Findings

• For additional details and examples of how to style a title in MLA 9, see the guide for formatting a book title .
• the first letter of the first word following a colon if what follows the colon forms a complete sentence
• names of racial and ethnic groups (Asian, Black, White, Native American, etc.)
• titles that come directly before a person’s name (President Lincoln, Dr. Smith, etc.)
• trade names and brand names that begin with a capital letter
• university departments, academic institutions, official academic course titles
• disease and disorder names
• job titles or positions when the title follows a name or is used generically (e.g., “Abraham Lincoln was president”)
• therapy and treatment names
• theories, concepts, models, statistical procedures
• When writing a source title in the body of your essay in APA style, use title case.
• When writing a source title in the reference list in APA style, use sentence case.
• For additional details and examples of how to style a title in APA 7, see the guide for formatting a book title .
• a proper noun
• a quotation
• two or more complete sentences
• job titles or positions directly before a name (Nurse Smith, Director Miller, etc.)
• legislative and deliberative bodies’ full names (e.g., the United States Congress)
• titles that come directly before a person’s name
• When writing a source title in the body of your essay or in the references/bibliography in Chicago/Turabian style, use title case.
• For additional details and examples of how to style a title in Chicago/Turabian, see the guide for formatting a book title .

Citation Guides

• Annotated Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• Citation Examples
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Page Numbers
• Reference Page
• Sample Paper
• APA 7 Updates
• View APA Guide
• Bibliography
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• View MLA Guide

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What to Capitalize in a Title: APA Title Capitalization Rules

Which words do you capitalize in a title?

Have you ever been confused about which words to capitalize in the title of your manuscript ? You have probably seen titles where only the first word is capitalized (so-called “sentence case”), titles where all words seem to be capitalized (“title case”), and also titles that look like combinations of the two. And you might have wondered where there is any general rule to all this. 

The answer is that, no, there is not really one general capitalization rule, but there are several style-dependent capitalization guidelines you can rely on, and the journal you plan to submit to will tell you (in their author instructions ) which one they want you to apply to your manuscript before submission. Just like you format your manuscript and reference list following APA or MLA formatting rules, you apply the respective style guide to capitalize your title, headings, and subheadings . In this article, we will first explain the general rules on what types of words to capitalize (e.g., nouns, articles, and conjunctions) and then look at the APA and MLA style guides in particular and their specific variations of those rules.

Research Paper Title Capitalization Rules

According to most style guides, all proper nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in titles of books and articles are to be capitalized. Some elements of titles are, however, never capitalized, such as articles (except articles at the beginning of a title), and some, such as conjunctions, can or cannot be capitalized, depending on the specific style guide variation. In the following, we will outline the general rules for all the different words in your title so that you can orient yourself easily to the different style guides and adapt your title quickly when necessary. 

Capitalizing Nouns and Pronouns in Titles

Nouns (including formal names of people, organizations, and places) and pronouns are easy to format, as all style guides agree that they should always be capitalized using title case capitalization. 

Capitalizing Articles in Titles

The rules for articles are also simple, as all major style guides agree that articles should be lowercase in titles—unless they represent the first and/or last word in the title:

In the latter example, the first “the” is capitalized because it is the first word of the title, while the second “the” is lowercase as articles usually are. Note that the same rule regarding article capitalization applies to subtitles as well.

Capitalizing Conjunctions in Titles

Conjunctions are a slightly more complicated case, as style guides differ on whether to capitalize them or on which conjunctions to capitalize. According to some guides,  conjunctions of three letters or fewer are to be written in lowercase while longer ones should be capitalized. Other style guides, however, state to write all conjunctions in lowercase, or make exceptions for specific conjunctions such as “yet”, “so”, and “as”. It is therefore always necessary to look up the specific rules of the target journal before submitting a manuscript—and have a look at our sections on APA and MLA style below. The following examples are, however, fairly universal:

Capitalizing Prepositions in Titles

Capitalization rules for prepositions are equally ambiguous and depend on the specific style guide you follow. Prepositions of four letters or more are often capitalized, while according to some style guides, all prepositions are written in lowercase, no matter their length. Sometimes, for example, when following the Chicago Manual of Style , capitalization depends on how a preposition is used in a title and whether it does indeed function as a preposition. According to this rule, prepositions are capitalized when they are used “adverbially or adjectivally” in prepositional phrases (as in “How to Back Up a Computer”), but not when used otherwise.

Capitalizing Adjectives and Adverbs in Titles     

Rules for capitalizing adjectives and adverbs , like nouns, are unproblematic, as they are capitalized across style guides. 

Capitalizing Verbs in Titles      

Verbs are another easy case and are also always capitalized, according to all style guides. 

Title Case Rules by Style Guide

Apa title case rules   .

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used for scholarly articles in the behavioral and social sciences. The APA guidelines on when to capitalize a title include the following rules:

MLA Title Case Rules  

The Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook , used primarily to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities, promotes the following rules for when to capitalize a title or header:

Additional Rules for Title Capitalization 

As we have stressed several times throughout this article, it is crucial to always check the specific rules of the target journal and/or the rules of the style guide the target journal wants you to follow—note that these can sometimes conflict with each other, in which case the journal rules override the style guide. Apart from the two common style guides we explained here, APA and MLA , there are several others that have their own rules, such as the Chicago Manual of Style , the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style , or the Associated Press Stylebook , an American English grammar style and usage guide originally developed for AP writers but now used widely across journalistic fields. There is even a specific set of rules for the capitalization of titles of Wikipedia articles !

One capitalization rule that might not necessarily be mentioned in such style guides but is relevant for some academic/scientific fields is that when the Latin name of a species is mentioned, the second portion of the name must be written in lowercase, even when the rest of the title follows title case rules.

Another capitalization rule you might need when describing research experiments is that both elements of spelled-out numbers or simple fractions should be capitalized in title case:

Lastly, no matter your personal preference, make sure you always write the titles of books and articles exactly as they are written on the original document/in the original version, even if they do not seem to follow common capitalization rules.

Correct Capitalization in Your Title with Professional Editing    

If you are even more unsure now how to capitalize your title or find the author instructions of your target journal confusing (which can happen, since those sets of rules have often grown organically over a long period of time and, as a result, can lack consistency), then you might want to make use of professional English proofreading services , including paper editing services —your professional academic editor will figure such details out for you and make sure your manuscript is in the correct format before submission.

If you need more input on how to write and perfect the other parts of your manuscript, then head over to the Wordvice academic resources website where we have many more resources for you.

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Daily Writing Tips

Rules for capitalization in titles.

I used to think there were only two ways to use capitalization in a title: (1) Capitalize only the first word in the title (except for proper nouns), which I learned working for a local newspaper; and (2) Capitalize the principal and longer words and lowercase the minor, shorter words, which I learned was wrong.

I also came to learn that the rules for capitalization in titles—like the rules for other areas of English grammar—are not set in stone; style guides and grammarians disagree on which words to capitalize in a title.

In fact, there are really only two rules that are consistent across the board:

• Capitalize the first word of the title
• Capitalize all proper nouns

Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. For example:

Why it’s never too late to learn grammar (all words lowercased except “Why”—first word in title)

Another method is to capitalize all words in a title. This one is considered simple because there’s no struggle trying to remember which words to capitalize and which ones to lowercase; they’re all capitalized. However, one could argue it’s the lazy man’s method or that it’s not very aesthetic. For example:

Why It’s Never Too Late To Learn Grammar (all words capitalized)

Title case, or up style, is another method. Whether or not you capitalize a word in a title depends on its part of speech. According to most style guides that use title case, the basic rules are as follows:

• Capitalize the first and last word in a title, regardless of part of speech
• Capitalize all nouns (baby, country, picture), pronouns (you, she, it), verbs (walk, think, dream), adjectives (sweet, large, perfect), adverbs (immediately, quietly), and subordinating conjunctions (as, because, although)
• Lowercase “to” as part of an infinitive
• Lowercase all articles (a, the), prepositions (to, at, in, with), and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or)

For example:

Why It’s Never Too Late to Learn Grammar (all words capitalized except “to,” a preposition)

That last rule for title case is upheld by some style guides, but not all. The Chicago Manual of Style follows that rule (except in cases in which an article, preposition, or coordinating conjunction is the first or last word in a title). However, The Associated Press would have you capitalize prepositions and conjunctions if they are four or more letters long. For others, the magic number is five rather than four. So, according to some guides, you have to worry not only about the part of speech, but also about the length of the words.

There is another common—but incorrect—“method” of using capitalization in titles. I used to follow it myself (see my first paragraph). Many writers mistakenly believe that in a title, you should capitalize the principal and longer words and lowercase the minor, shorter words.

For example, writers often lowercase all two- or three-letter words in a title because they’re short, and many articles, prepositions, and conjunctions—most of which should be lowercased—are short, as well. However, short words can be nouns, pronouns, and verbs, etc., which should be capitalized. Part of speech is more important than length when it comes to determining capitalization in titles. For example:

Why it’s Never too Late to Learn Grammar (wrong)

“It’s” is a contraction of “it,” a pronoun, and “is,” a verb, both of which should be capitalized; “too” is an adverb, which should also be capitalized.

Regardless of which convention you’d prefer to follow (except for the last example), you need to be consistent. Pick one (or follow the style guide of your employer, school, or clients) and stick with it.

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21 thoughts on “Rules for Capitalization in Titles”

Great advice! It can be tricky to know which words to capitalize. When it doubt, look it up!

I love this post! I’ve been bouncing all over the map on this one and appreciate the clear presentation. I normally make an attempt at the 3rd method (Title case) but wasn’t familiar with the rules. For such a seemingly small item for a blog post, it was stressing me out!

I don’t really see any hard and fast rules being delivered in this post, which is fine. I have no problem finding my comfort zone and sticking to it. My personal preference apparently has a name (Title Case).

However, I must comment on the statement that “Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.”

If they espouse Sentence Case, why are the words “Manual,” “Psychological” and “Association” capitalized?! (OK, maybe “Psychological” and “Association” are considered proper nouns in the sense that they are the part of the title of this particular association. But “manual”?)

Thanks for these tips. I wonder if the title-case method is older than the sentence-case method, since that’s the way we were taught about 100 years ago, right along with two spaces after a period.

Maybe it’s time to update my thinking on that. One thing’s for sure, it would save me time trying to figure out what to capitalize and what not to.

Great tips.. I might have to focus on which style I would stick to.

Interesting article on the complexities of capitalization! Thanks. As a writer and editor, I’ve discovered that one almost never gets to “pick” the style one likes best — the goal is to determine the house style required and stick with that religiously.

With APA, a mix of capitalization styles is called for. For reference lists in citing an article in a journal, the article title itself is done in sentence-case while the name of the journal is in title-case. Same for magazines and newspapers. Oddly enough, book titles are to be given in sentence-case, except for proper nouns, of course. So in a reference list, the title of the APA manual would be the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association! For titles in the body of a paper, one uses title-case, but without capitalizing conjunctions, articles, or prepositions shorter than four letters. So in the text itself, the APA manual would be Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Logical? No. But to play in their ballpark, one must follow their rules. Does the MLA (Modern Language Association) style match with APA for capitalization? Of course not. That would be too easy. Try teaching an English composition course which is supposed to prepare students to enter both the social sciences and the humanites — keeping APA and MLA straight is really quite the challenge these days and capitalization is just a piece of it. And then the history faculty complain that they get students who don’t know how to footnote properly. Sigh.

“Learn” is a verb in my dictionary, so that would make the “to” in “to learn” part of the infinitive.

Great explanation. I was wondering about this for a long time.

Fortunately, most nonacademic writers don’t need to concern themselves with the conflicting dictates of various manuals for specific disciplines like the APA and the MLA. But it’s still confusing to a layperson. Here’s a breakdown by media type of what you’re likely to see:

Newspapers vary in their capitalization style for headlines, from using initial caps for every word to using sentence case. Magazines do so also, but they are not necessarily consistent from one article to the next, because they may design a given article headline to resonate with the feature’s theme (military-style stencil lettering for an profile about a soldier) or tone (a whimsical font for a story about the circus).

Book-cover designers often play with font and case, too but the style on the title page (and in references to other books in a book’s text) will generally be title case. Trade books — those for lay consumers, as opposed to scholars — that include bibliographies and references usually use title case in those resources, too.

Title case is what you’ll usually see on professionally edited Web sites as well, and it’s the default style for writing most people are likely to undertake.

Carla, did you mean “Many” in “May writers mistakenly believe…”? Good post. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments, everybody. Ken – I absolutely meant “Many”….thanks for pointing that out! Even proofreaders need their work proofread…

I agree with TechWriter. “To” is not a preposition when used with a verb. It becomes part of the verb as an infinitive.

Many Thanks for This Wonderful Essay

I would disagree only with one thing. You use the word ‘worry’ in the phrase “…you have to worry not only about the part of speech…” when ‘be aware of’ would perhaps be less pejorative or off-putting.

I think this topic is one of those things that just have to be done right, and which once learned bring professionalism to us amateurs – joyful for both the writer and the reader. Following this particular rule fully embellished fulfills many of the purposes of a title: grab and focus attention in an aesthetic way.

I had learned much of the rule, but not all. Now I can pay attention to who uses the rule effectively and who lets things slip. Your example of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual was interesting. Since they are known for their tendency to make milquetoast of ‘complications’, even at the cost of losing the effect and purpose of the chore, I believed your version of their rule. But on their site I found them quite internally inconsistent. There are examples of every title type.

Again, thank you for the essay.

PS – Cindy, the two space rule depended on the culture and when you learned to type. Typesetting machines and word-processors have never needed two spaces, and possibly not even proportionate Selectronic typewriters.

Here’s why it is Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association:

Publication Manual: Proper noun

American Psychological Association: Proper noun

You see, it is not just a Publication, nor is it just a Manual, it is a Publication Manual and that is its proper name, just as American Psychological Association is a proper name.

Also, I believe it may bolster their self-esteem.

P.S. Being ultra-radical I still put two spaces after a period and a colon! This website persists in correcting it, however, and my defiant space statements go unheard.

@Garrison: Rumor has it that the two-space habit originated with the [manual] typewriters that didn’t do any kind of automatic spacing adjustments, and so putting two spaces allowed for easier and faster reading, skimming and searching of documents (which, in those primitive days, were called papers). This two-space habit persisted into the use of WordPerfect (or should I say, WordImPerfect). The first medical transcription company I worked for had a particular account, a very large local hospital here, and all our work was done COMPLETELY in capital letters. Imagine reading pages and pages of documentation in all caps. The double space between sentences allowed a little rest for the weary eyes. I continue to use two spaces between sentences (and after colons), since I think it still makes skimming and searching documents easier. Whether or not my computer software makes any adjustments (and I don’t see that it does), I don’t know or care; by now, the two-space habit is ingrained, and it would take me a long time to get rid of it; not worth the effort. However, if the web site wants to eliminate my double spaces, it is free to do so. I won’t lose time–or sleep–over it! (and I’m thrilled to be considered ultra-radical about SOMEthing LOL)

@thebluebird11,

Yes, once we did type manually with no power required. Except of course the power to jam those sticky keys down hard enough to make an impression through the ribbon. Back then I used to find the ends of sentences by turning the paper over and holding it up to the light to see where the “stars” were. LOL. I think the old Underwood may still be in the closet at my parent’s house.

After that was a nice little Smith-Corona electric typewriter that tended to put too many spaces between things. It was a fine improvement, but still had a ribbon. By the way, why was there a red half on the bottom of the ribbon? I don’t think I ever used red to type anything.

In the mid-80’s I got a Smith-Corona that had a small screen and memory download on to a floppy disk that allowed you to edit and save documents. The only advantage to this system was that the saved document was re-typed by the machine, making it appear like an original paper. It was also fairly small and portable and I could plug it in at the library, unlike the cumbersome and virtually useless IBM PC Jr. I invested in just a year before.

I still use two spaces after commas because that was how I learned to type way back in the third grade. When I wrote my dissertation in the early 80’s that was still the APA norm. In fact, that was still the norm up until the early 90’s when I was reading student’s dissertations. As recently as 2008 I was writing court reports using two spaces and I never heard any complaints. It has only been in the last year that I discovered the one-space-rule and MLA due to proofreading my son’s papers. When it comes to things written, I am hopelessly out of date.

But, I keep up the good fight. Right on, far out, and power to the people! LOL.

I was once instructed to lower case state-of-being verbs. Is that part of any accepted convention?

Thank you for providing this valuable content on when to capitalize words in a title. Lately, I have been writing a lot of articles and I want to make sure my grammar is as correct as possible.

I really appreciate your help.

Stacie Walker

Thank you. I confess that capitalization is one of my many grammar weak spots. I think I will sign up for your newsletter:-)

I have worked as a professional writer for a several years. I constantly have to fight with people about the capitalization of the word “is” in a title. Since it is a verb, I have always capitalized “is” in titles; however, I constantly see others putting it in lowercase. I sometimes wonder if there is a rule I am unaware of. I have checked with case-checking websites, and these always say to capitalize “is” as well. Lately, I have become mired in self-doubt. I find myself wanting to lowercase “is” because I hate having others look at me with pity for what they think is my ignorance of proper style. I know this is my own insecurity, and I just wanted to vent. This post seems to support my position. However, if anyone knows why “is” should be in lowercase, please let me know so I won’t continue down this misguided editorial path.

Capitalise the first word of the title and capitalise all proper nouns. No more, no less.

Leave the arguments over this method actually being correct aside for a moment, it’s more aesthetically pleasing.

And, for the love of all things holy, no double spaces. Please!

Double spaces after a comma? That’s madness.

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Capitalization

APA Style is a “down” style, meaning that words are lowercase unless there is specific guidance to capitalize them. For example, capitalize the first word of a sentence, unless the sentence begins with the name of a person whose name starts with a lowercase letter.

The Publication Manual contains guidance on how to capitalize words beginning a sentence; proper nouns and trade names; job titles and positions; diseases, disorders, therapies, theories, and related terms; titles of works and headings within works; titles of tests and measures; nouns followed by numerals or letters; names of conditions or groups in an experiment; and names of study factors, variables, and effects. Only a subset of the guidance is presented on the website to answers users’ most common questions.

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Which Words in a Title Should Be Capitalized?

The Difference Between Sentence and Title Case

ThoughtCo/Richard Nordquist

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

There is no single set of rules for capitalizing words in a title of a book, article, essay, movie, song, poem, play, television program, or computer game. And, unfortunately, even style guides disagree, complicating matters.

However, here is a basic guide to the two most common methods, sentence case and title case , and the top differences between some of the main title capitalization styles. For most of us, it's a matter of selecting one convention and sticking to it.

First, which is which?

Sentence Case (Down Style) or Title Case (Up Style)

In sentence case, which is the simplest, titles are treated more like sentences: You capitalize the first word of the title and any proper nouns (not the same for subtitles).

In title case, on the other hand, which is the most prevalent in book titles and magazine and newspaper headlines, you capitalize the first and last words of the title and all nouns , pronouns , adjectives , verbs , adverbs , and subordinating conjunctions ( if , because , as , that , and so on). In other words, all the important words.

But this is where things start getting sticky. There are four main title capitalization styles: Chicago style (from the style manual published by the University of Chicago), APA style (from the American Psychological Association), AP style (from The Associated Press), and the MLA style (from the Modern Language Association).

In American mainstream publishing, Chicago and AP are the most widely used and referenced (APA and MLA are more used in scholarly articles). And when it comes to capitalization, it's the little words that they disagree on.

Little Words

According to "The Chicago Manual of Style," " articles ( a, an, the ), coordinating conjunctions ( and, but, or, for, nor ), and prepositions , regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title."

"The Associated Press Stylebook" is fussier. It calls for:

• Capitalizing the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of three or more letters
• Capitalizing an article— the, a, an —or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title

Other guides say that prepositions and conjunctions of fewer than five letters should be in lowercase—except at the beginning or end of a title. (For additional guidelines, see the glossary entry for title case .)

"Whichever preposition rule you adopt, you need to remember that many common prepositions [can also] function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, and when they do, they should be capitalized in a title," says Amy Einsohn in her "Copyeditor's Handbook."

A Capital Answer

So, should you use sentence case or title case?

If your school, college, or business has a house style  guide, that decision has been made for you. If not, simply pick one or the other (flip a coin if you have to), and then try to be consistent.

A note on  hyphenated compound words in a headline: As a general rule, says the latest edition of "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" (that newspaper's style manual), "capitalize both parts of a hyphenated compound in a headline: Cease-Fire; Able-Bodied; Sit-In; Make-Believe; One-Fifth. When a hyphen is used with a prefix of two or three letters merely to separate doubled vowels or to clarify pronunciation , lowercase after the hyphen: Co-op; Re-entry; Pre-empt. But: Re-Sign; Co-Author. With a prefix of four letters or more, capitalize after the hyphen: Anti-Intellectual; Post-Mortem. In sums of money: $7 Million; $34 Billion."

One piece of advice on this subject comes from "The Chicago Manual of Style:" "Break a rule when it doesn't work."

And if you want a little help, there are sites online that will check your titles for you.

• Definition and Examples of Title Case and Headline Style
• 36 Common Prefixes in English
• The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples
• Common Keyboard Symbols: Names, Uses, and Styles
• Guidelines for Using Capital Letters
• Using Sentence Case for Titles, Headings, and Headlines
• 140 Key Copyediting Terms and What They Mean
• What Is a Citation?
• What Is a Style Guide and Which One Do You Need?
• What's the Preferred Way to Write the Abbreviation for United States?
• All About Capitalization
• Definition and Examples of Asterisks (*)
• Top 10 Reference Works for Writers and Editors
• What Is a Bibliography?
• How to Use Italics
• Top 8 Free Online Style Guides in English

• NAU Editorial Style Guide
• Abbreviations and acronyms

Capitalization

• Diversity Writing Style Guide
• Inclusive writing
• Numbers and Dates
• Punctuation
• Writing tips
• Writing about Flagstaff and Northern Arizona University
• Treatment of titles
• Non Discrimination Statement
• Contact Information

Links on this page

General rules, academic and administrative titles, academic degrees, academic departments, building and room names, course titles, government references, regional references, semesters and sessions, scholarships and fellowships, sentence vs. title case for titles and headings, student classification.

• Capitalize only when necessary. The more words you capitalize, the more you complicate your text.
• College of Arts and Letters
• Comptroller’s Office
• Office of the President
• The W. A. Franke School of Business (always include The and W. A. has a space between letters)
• Northern Arizona University offers courses in a variety of disciplines through the Grand Canyon Semester.
• The university partners with Grand Canyon National Park to offer courses in the field.
• financial aid office
• the college
• liberal arts
• San Francisco and Beaver streets
• Gabaldon and Raymond halls
• lakes Powell and Mead
• Headings should always be in sentence case with limited exceptions where approved by University Marketing.
• official : NAU Homecoming
• unofficial : homecoming
• official : Dean’s Office
• unofficial : the office
• official : Native American Cultural Center
• unofficial : the center

See our word list for institutional standards, dictionary exceptions, and guidance on specific words not listed here.

• Professor Ana Yazzie
• Ana Yazzie, professor of communication
• a diligent professor, Ana Yazzie
• Northern Arizona University President José Luis Cruz Rivera
• José Luis Cruz Rivera, president of Northern Arizona University
• José Luis Cruz Rivera became president in 2021
• Exception: Capitalize titles that follow names in formal contexts, such as lists in the front areas of reports and books (see rule 6).
• Capitalize named chairs or professorships that include the academic title and titles such as Distinguished Professor .
• Use lowercase for terms denoting roles, such as nurse, coach, citizen, or historian, when they precede a name.
• Veronica Begay, Master of Arts
• Tara Jackson, Bachelor of Science
• Martin Rodriguez, BA
• Silke Solies, MS
• William Wallace Covington, PhD, Regents’ Professor
• Charles C. Avery, Professor Emeritus
• Dewey Cheatham, Esq.

Note : Never use the plural or plural possessive—bachelors’, masters’—in reference to degree names.

NAU degrees

Always capitalize when writing about NAU degrees, even if it’s not the entire formal title. Search for the formal degree name in the catalog and capitalize accordingly. For alumni, just capitalize their degree as told.

Formal : she graduated with a BS in Forestry Informal : BA in Literature

Other institutions

This rule does NOT apply when writing informally about academic degrees from other institutions:

bachelor of science Jeff earned a bachelor of science degree.

bachelor’s degree Julie earned a bachelor’s degree in communications.

master’s degree The university offers a master’s degree in biology.

doctoral degree Sandra has a doctoral degree in chemistry.

• Capitalize full, formal department names: Department of Geology, School of Forestry, Politics and International Affairs, History Department.
• Arizona Board of Regents
• the board, the regents
• Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra
• the symphony, the orchestra
• Center for Environmental Sciences and Education
• Gabaldon Hall (Building 58)
• research center
• Grand Canyon Room
• The meeting will be held in Performing and Fine Arts, room 210.
• Cline Library, Room 304

Official names of academic courses are capitalized. Search the catalog for the correct course title.

• Adrian is enrolled in Mass Communication and Human Behavior.

Do not capitalize federal, state, or city unless part of an official name:

• city of Flagstaff
• state of Arizona
• federal government
• Federal Communications Commission

Use the capital letters. Add s to indicate plurals. To avoid confusion with the word as , use the apostrophe to designate the plural of the letter grade A:

A’s, Bs, Cs, etc.

Capitalize recognized geographical regions of the country but not general directions:

Ellen, who grew up in the East, moved west after she visited Arizona. The West Coast is beautiful. Our campus is in northern Arizona.

Use lowercase for seasons and derivatives unless they begin a sentence or are part of a formal name:

spring, summer, autumn, winter wintertime, springtime 2006 Winter Olympics

• Cowden Microbiology Scholarship
• Arizona Broadcasters Association Scholarship
• broadcasters scholarship
• Cowden grant

Do not capitalize the common names of semesters, terms, or academic sessions:

fall semester summer session registration orientation

Use sentence case for all marketing materials, including headings and email subject lines. Sentence case capitalizes the first letter of the first word and proper nouns in a title—just like in a regular sentence.

Title case uses capital letters for the principal words. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions do not get capital letters unless they start the title. Use title case for reports and documents only—not in marketing materials or email subject lines.

<!–

UPDATE: Previous best practice required title case in email subject lines. This practice has been amended for consistency and in accordance with updated spam filtering information.

Sentence case examples

NAU: The world looks different from here Earn an NAU degree right where you are

Title case examples

NAU: The World Looks Different From Here Earn an NAU Degree Right Where You Are

Do not capitalize:

freshman sophomore junior senior

Note: “undergrad” and “grad” can be used only in web menus and other cases of extreme space limitations. In all other cases, it should be spelled out as “undergraduate” and “graduate.”

Menus: sentence case Headers: sentence case Buttons: sentence case Menus: Main menu headings should be capitalized following sentence case rules. Menu subheads should be capitalized following sentence case rules unless the subhead is a continuation of the above heading.

Frequently asked questions

Are titles capitalized in mla.

Yes. MLA style uses title case, which means that all principal words (nouns, pronouns , verbs, adjectives , adverbs , and some conjunctions ) are capitalized.

This applies to titles of sources as well as the title of, and subheadings in, your paper. Use MLA capitalization style even when the original source title uses different capitalization .

Frequently asked questions: MLA Style

In MLA style , footnotes or endnotes can be used to provide additional information that would interrupt the flow of your text.

This can be further examples or developments of ideas you only briefly discuss in the text. You can also use notes to provide additional sources or explain your citation practice.

You don’t have to use any notes at all; only use them to provide relevant information that complements your arguments or helps the reader to understand them.

No, you should use parenthetical MLA in-text citations to cite sources. Footnotes or endnotes can be used to add extra information that doesn’t fit into your main text, but they’re not needed for citations.

If you need to cite a lot of sources at the same point in the text, though, placing these citations in a note can be a good way to avoid cluttering your text.

According to MLA format guidelines, the Works Cited page(s) should look like this:

• Running head containing your surname and the page number.
• The title, Works Cited, centered and in plain text.
• List of sources alphabetized by the author’s surname.
• Left-aligned.
• Double-spaced.
• 1-inch margins.
• Hanging indent applied to all entries.

The MLA Works Cited lists every source that you cited in your paper. Each entry contains the author , title , and publication details of the source.

No, in an MLA annotated bibliography , you can write short phrases instead of full sentences to keep your annotations concise. You can still choose to use full sentences instead, though.

Use full sentences in your annotations if your instructor requires you to, and always use full sentences in the main text of your paper .

If you’re working on a group project and therefore need to list multiple authors for your paper , MLA recommends against including a normal header . Instead, create a separate title page .

On the title page, list each author on a separate line, followed by the other usual information from the header: Instructor, course name and number, and submission date. Then write the title halfway down the page, centered, and start the text of the paper itself on the next page.

Usually, no title page is needed in an MLA paper . A header is generally included at the top of the first page instead. The exceptions are when:

• Your instructor requires one, or
• Your paper is a group project

In those cases, you should use a title page instead of a header, listing the same information but on a separate page.

When an online source (e.g. web page , blog post) doesn’t list a publication date , you should instead list an access date .

Unlike a publication date, this appears at the end of your MLA Works Cited entry, after the URL, e.g. “A Complete Guide to MLA Style.” Scribbr , www.scribbr.com/category/mla/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2021 .

For offline sources with no publication date shown, don’t use an access date—just leave out the date.

The level of detail you provide in a publication date in your Works Cited list depends on the type of source and the information available. Generally, follow the lead of the source—if it gives the full date, give the full date; if it gives just the year, so should you.

Books usually list the year, whereas web pages tend to give a full date. For journal articles , give the year, month and year, or season and year, depending on what information is available. Check our citation examples if you’re unsure about a particular source type.

In an MLA Works Cited list , the names of months with five or more letters are abbreviated to the first three letters, followed by a period. For example, abbreviate Feb., Mar., Apr., but not June, July.

In the main text, month names should never be abbreviated.

In your MLA Works Cited list , dates are always written in day-month-year order, with the month abbreviated if it’s five or more letters long, e.g. 5 Mar. 2018.

In the main text, you’re free to use either day-month-year or month-day-year order, as long as you use one or the other consistently. Don’t abbreviate months in the main text, and use numerals for dates, e.g. 5 March 2018 or March 5, 2018.

In most standard dictionaries , no author is given for either the overall dictionary or the individual entries, so no author should be listed in your MLA citations.

Instead, start your Works Cited entry and your MLA in-text citation with the title of the entry you’re citing (i.e. the word that’s being defined), in quotation marks.

If you cite a specialist dictionary that does list an author and/or overall editor, these should be listed in the same way as they would for other citations of books or book chapters .

Some source types, such as books and journal articles , may contain footnotes (or endnotes) with additional information. The following rules apply when citing information from a note in an MLA in-text citation :

• To cite information from a single numbered note, write “n” after the page number, and then write the note number, e.g. (Smith 105n2)
• To cite information from multiple numbered notes, write “nn” and include a range, e.g. (Smith 77nn1–2)
• To cite information from an unnumbered note, write “un” after the page number, with a space in between, e.g. (Jones 250 un)

If you cite multiple Shakespeare plays throughout your paper, the MLA in-text citation begins with an abbreviated version of the title (as shown here ), e.g. ( Oth. 1.2.4). Each play should have its own  Works Cited entry (even if they all come from the same collection).

If you cite only one Shakespeare play in your paper, you should include a Works Cited entry for that play, and your in-text citations should start with the author’s name , e.g. (Shakespeare 1.1.4).

No, do not use page numbers in your MLA in-text citations of Shakespeare plays . Instead, specify the act, scene, and line numbers of the quoted material, separated by periods, e.g. (Shakespeare 3.2.20–25).

This makes it easier for the reader to find the relevant passage in any edition of the text.

When an article (e.g. in a newspaper ) appears on non-consecutive pages (e.g. starting on page 1 and continuing on page 6), you should use “pp.” in your Works Cited entry, since it’s on multiple pages, but MLA recommends just listing the first page followed by a plus sign, e.g. pp. 1+.

In an MLA style Works Cited entry for a newspaper , you can cite a local newspaper in the same way as you would a national one, except that you may have to add the name of the city in square brackets to clarify what newspaper you mean, e.g. The Gazette [Montreal].

Do not add the city name in brackets if it’s already part of the newspaper’s name, e.g. Dallas Observer .

MLA doesn’t require you to list an author for a TV show . If your citation doesn’t focus on a particular contributor, just start your Works Cited entry with the title of the episode or series, and use this (shortened if necessary) in your MLA in-text citation .

If you focus on a particular contributor (e.g. the writer or director, a particular actor), you can list them in the author position , along with a label identifying their role.

It’s standard to list the podcast’s host in the author position , accompanied by the label “host,” in an MLA Works Cited entry. It’s sometimes more appropriate to use the label “narrator,” when the podcast just tells a story without any guests.

If your citation of the podcast focuses more on the contribution of someone else (e.g. a guest, the producer), they can be listed in the author position instead, with an appropriate label.

MLA recommends citing the original source wherever possible, rather than the source in which it is quoted or reproduced.

If this isn’t possible, cite the secondary source and use “qtd. in” (quoted in) in your MLA in-text citation . For example: (qtd. in Smith 233)

If a source is reproduced in full within another source (e.g. an image within a PowerPoint  or a poem in an article ), give details of the original source first, then include details of the secondary source as a container. For example:

When you want to cite a PowerPoint or lecture notes from a lecture you viewed in person in MLA , check whether they can also be accessed online ; if so, this is the best version to cite, as it allows the reader to access the source.

If the material is not available online, use the details of where and when the presentation took place.

In an MLA song citation , you need to give some sort of container to indicate how you accessed the song. If this is a physical or downloaded album, the Works Cited entry should list the album name, distributor, year, and format.

However, if you listened to the song on a streaming service, you can just list the site as a container, including a URL. In this case, including the album details is optional; you may add this information if it is relevant to your discussion or if it will help the reader access the song.

When citing a song in MLA style , the author is usually the main artist or group that released the song.

However, if your discussion focuses on the contributions of a specific performer, e.g. a guitarist or singer, you may list them as author, even if they are not the main artist. If you’re discussing the lyrics or composition, you may cite the songwriter or composer rather than a performer.

When a source has no title , this part of your MLA reference is replaced with a description of the source, in plain text (no italics or quotation marks, sentence-case capitalization).

Whenever you refer to an image created by someone else in your text, you should include a citation leading the reader to the image you’re discussing.

If you include the image directly in your text as a figure , the details of the source appear in the figure’s caption. If you don’t, just include an MLA in-text citation wherever you mention the image, and an entry in the Works Cited list giving full details.

In MLA Style , you should cite a specific chapter or work within a book in two situations:

• When each of the book’s chapters is written by a different author.
• When the book is a collection of self-contained works (such as poems , plays , or short stories ), even if they are all written by the same author.

If you cite multiple chapters or works from the same book, include a separate Works Cited entry for each chapter.

If a source has no author, start the MLA Works Cited entry with the source title . Use a shortened version of the title in your MLA in-text citation .

If a source has no page numbers, you can use an alternative locator (e.g. a chapter number, or a timestamp for a video or audio source) to identify the relevant passage in your in-text citation. If the source has no numbered divisions, cite only the author’s name (or the title).

If you already named the author or title in your sentence, and there is no locator available, you don’t need a parenthetical citation:

• Rajaram  argues that representations of migration are shaped by “cultural, political, and ideological interests.”
• The homepage of The Correspondent describes it as “a movement for radically different news.”

If a source has two authors, name both authors in your MLA in-text citation and Works Cited entry. If there are three or more authors, name only the first author, followed by et al.

You must include an MLA in-text citation every time you quote or paraphrase from a source (e.g. a book , movie , website , or article ).

MLA Style  is the second most used citation style (after APA ). It is mainly used by students and researchers in humanities fields such as literature, languages, and philosophy.

If information about your source is not available, you can either leave it out of the MLA citation or replace it with something else, depending on the type of information.

• No author : Start with the source title.
• No title : Provide a description of the source.
• No date : Provide an access date for online sources; omit for other sources.

A standard MLA Works Cited entry  is structured as follows:

Only include information that is available for and relevant to your source.

The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style , but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals , newspapers , websites , or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:

Use the same formatting in the Works Cited entry and when referring to the article in the text itself.

In MLA style , book titles appear in italics, with all major words capitalized. If there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space (even if no colon appears in the source). For example:

The format is the same in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. However, when you mention the book title in the text, you don’t have to include the subtitle.

The title of a part of a book—such as a chapter, or a short story or poem in a collection—is not italicized, but instead placed in quotation marks.

In MLA style citations , format a DOI as a link, including “https://doi.org/” at the start and then the unique numerical code of the article.

DOIs are used mainly when citing journal articles in MLA .

The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.

This quick guide to MLA style  explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.

The fastest and most accurate way to create MLA citations is by using Scribbr’s MLA Citation Generator .

Search by book title, page URL, or journal DOI to automatically generate flawless citations, or cite manually using the simple citation forms.

MLA recommends using 12-point Times New Roman , since it’s easy to read and installed on every computer. Other standard fonts such as Arial or Georgia are also acceptable. If in doubt, check with your supervisor which font you should be using.

To create a correctly formatted block quote in Microsoft Word, follow these steps:

• Hit Enter at the beginning and end of the quote.
• Highlight the quote and select the Layout menu.
• On the Indent tab, change the left indent to 0.5″.

Do not put quotation marks around the quote, and make sure to include an MLA in-text citation after the period at the end.

To format a block quote in MLA:

• Introduce the quote with a colon and set it on a new line.
• Indent the whole quote 0.5 inches from the left margin.
• Place the MLA in-text citation after the period at the end of the block quote.

Then continue your text on a new line (not indented).

In MLA style , if you quote more than four lines from a source, use MLA block quote formatting .

If you are quoting poetry , use block quote formatting for any quote longer than three lines.

An MLA in-text citation should always include the author’s last name, either in the introductory text or in parentheses after a quote .

If line numbers or page numbers are included in the original source, add these to the citation.

If you are discussing multiple poems by the same author, make sure to also mention the title of the poem (shortened if necessary). The title goes in quotation marks .

In the list of Works Cited , start with the poet’s name and the poem’s title in quotation marks. The rest of the citation depends on where the poem was published.

If you read the poem in a book or anthology, follow the format of an MLA book chapter citation . If you accessed the poem online, follow the format of an MLA website citation .

Only use line numbers in an MLA in-text citation if the lines are numbered in the original source. If so, write “lines” in the first citation of the poem , and only the numbers in subsequent citations.

If there are no line numbers in the source, you can use page numbers instead. If the poem appears on only one page of a book (or on a website ), don’t include a number in the citation.

To quote poetry in MLA style , introduce the quote and use quotation marks as you would for any other source quotation .

If the quote includes line breaks, mark these using a forward slash with a space on either side. Use two slashes to indicate a stanza break.

If the quote is longer than three lines, set them off from the main text as an MLA block quote . Reproduce the line breaks, punctuation, and formatting of the original.

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• Writing Tips

When to Capitalize Job Titles in Writing

4-minute read

• 19th July 2021

Should it be “President Biden” or “president Biden”? Is the “social worker” coming to the meeting, or should it be “Social Worker”? To learn when to capitalize job titles in business writing (or any other document), read our guide below.

When Capitalization is Key

Typically, job titles that come before names are capitalized (unless there is punctuation separating the title from the name). In these cases, the job title functions as part of a proper noun formed by the title and name:

President Biden has won the election. 

Head of Sales Mark Smith will be interviewing for the position. 

But beware of commas! As you can see, the job title below is not capitalized as we’re using it generically, not as a proper name:

The graphic designer , Sohaila Hussein, is very good at her job. 

We’ll look at this and other exceptions again later in the post.

Capitalization in Other Contexts

Other situations in which you may need to capitalize job titles include:

• To show respect to a person in a high-status role or position, especially if you are using their job title to stand in for their name.

The Queen will be opening this leisure center. 

Have you written to the President yet? 

• In emails or letter signature lines.

Yours faithfully, Sarah Brown, Assistant Principal

Melanie Ferrer, Speech and Language Therapist

• In headings, such as section headings in a resume.

May 2019–July 2020 , Customer Services Assistant

• In the vocative case (i.e., when using a job title to address someone directly).

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Is it serious, Doctor ?

• If a job title appears in the proper name for a building or department.

Office of the Vice Chancellor

Finally, if you’re an employee, make sure to check your organization’s style guide (if they have one) for specific details on capitalizing titles within the company. For example, some companies prefer to capitalize job roles as a matter of respect. And if your boss prefers to see their title capitalized in official documents, it is usually wise to follow their example even if it means bending the standard rules!

When Capitalization is Not Correct

When job titles are used descriptively or generically within a sentence, they are not usually capitalized. This applies to formal writing, job descriptions, cover letters and resumes, and pretty much any other form of writing you can imagine. For example:

Our chief editor , Simon Crystal, has an office on the second floor.

Mrs. Osborne, our assistant chef , makes the most delicious lasagna.

The receptionists at this company leave a lot to be desired.

During my time as a sales manager , I was responsible for 15 employees.

I would make an excellent staff nurse as I have great interpersonal skills.

In other words, when a job description is used in a sentence and does not stand in for (or form part of) a proper name, your default should be to use lowercase letters at the start of each word. However, as above, you may want to check your employer’s style guide for advice on capitalizing specific job titles.

Summary: To Capitalize or Not to Capitalize?

In summary, the rules for capitalizing job titles are:

• Job titles are normally capitalized when they stand in for (or are part of) a proper name, especially when the title precedes a person’s name.
• Job titles are also commonly capitalized to show respect for high-status individuals, when using a title to address someone directly, or when they appear in headings and signature lines. 
• When used generically or descriptively, job titles are not usually capitalized.

We hope this post has clarified how to capitalize job titles in writing. But if you’d like an expert to help you perfect your writing, why not try our proofreading service ?

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