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- Capitalization
Neha Karve
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.
Examples
- Title case: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- Title case: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Capitalize lower-level headings using sentence case, in which you capitalize only the words you would normally capitalize in a sentence.
Examples
- Sentence case: The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
- Sentence case: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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.
Examples
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- Three Men in a Boat
- Pride and Prejudice
- Requiem for a Dream
- Catch Me If You Can
- The Portrait of a Lady
- The Way We Live Now
- The Girl Who Played with Fire
- Men without Women
- The Ground beneath Her Feet
- Everything Is Illuminated
The first and last words of a title are always capitalized, no matter what they are.
Examples
- A Clockwork Orange
- The Mill on the Floss
- In Search of Lost Time
- Through a Glass Darkly
- From Blood and Ash
- But What If There’s No Chimney?
- And Then There Were None
- Something to Answer For
- Something to Believe In
- All We Dream Of
- Where We Come From
Caution
It may not always be clear at first glance whether a word should be capitalized. Check what function it serves in the title.
Examples
The word to is lowercased, regardless of what function it serves in the sentence (unless it is the first or last word).
Examples
- Train to Busan
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
- A Good Man Is Hard to 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.
Examples
- The Man-Eater of Malgudi
Eater is a noun and should be capitalized.
- The Academy’s Out-of-Uniform Procedure
Lowercase of, which is a preposition, but capitalize uniform, a noun.
- The Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Fairies
- The Thirty-Nine Steps
- The Anti-Inflammatory Diet Cookbook
- Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
- The Fire-Breathing Dragon
Any subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is always capitalized.
Examples
- Computer: A History of the Information Machine
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
- A Memoir: Of 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.
Examples
- How to Be the Go-To Person in Your Organization
- A Run-In with Religion and Other True Stories
Tip
Capitalize all the words that make up a phrasal verb, even a word that is a preposition.
Examples
- What to Do When You Run Into Someone You Don’t Like
- How to Set Up Your Spaceship’s AI
- Don’t Put Off 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.
Examples
- There Will Be Blood
- Tender Is the Night
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Then She Was Gone
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
Also capitalize the have and do verbs in all their forms: have, has, had, do, does, did.
Examples
- The Heart Has Its Reasons
- Owls Do 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.
Examples
- Companies That Fleece Their Customers
- The House That 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.
Examples
- How It All Began
- Some of My Favorite Things
- The Best We Can Do
- The General in His Labyrinth
- The Woman Who Did
No and not in a title
Capitalize the words no and not (a determiner and an adverb) whenever these words appear in titles.
Examples
- Beasts of No Nation
- Oranges Are Not 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.
Examples
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- The Girl Who Played With Fire
- Men Without Women
- The Ground Beneath Her Feet
- So Far From God
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- Much Ado About Nothing
- The Light Between Oceans
- The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
- A Woman Under the Influence
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- The World Until Yesterday
- The Man in the Brown Suit
- The Wizard of Oz
- A Home for Lunatics
- The Woman on the Beach
but
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.
Examples
- We Should All Be Feminists
- If I Had Your Face
- Marley and Me
- The Man Who Sold His 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).
Examples
- Pride and Prejudice
- I’d Tell You I Love You, but Then I’d Have to Kill You
- Catch Me if You Can
Also, do lowercase articles and any prepositions up to three letters long: a, an, the, for, in, of, to, etc.
Examples
- The Bridge on the River Kwai
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- The Catcher in the Rye
- A House for Mr. Biswas
Finally, in AP Style, the first and last words are capitalized as usual, regardless of length.
Examples
- An American Tragedy
- The Invisible Man
- As I Lay Dying
- Of Human Bondage
- On the Waterfront
- For the Green Planet
- Something to Answer For
- These Times We Live In
However, in APA style, the last word is capitalized only if it is a major word or longer than three letters.
Examples
- Something to Answer for
- These Times We Live in
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.
Examples
- Sense and Sensibility
- The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
- Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
- Even If We Break
but
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.
Examples
- The Anti-inflammatory Diet Cookbook
- The Thirty-Nine Steps
The word thirty can stand by itself, so capitalize nine as well.
Since the prefix anti- can’t stand by itself, don’t capitalize the second part of the hyphenated term.
but
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.
Examples
- The Things We Believe In
Capitalize the last word, even a preposition.
- Only One Way Through
- It’s You I’m Dreaming Of
MLA style
The MLA Handbook (used in academic writing for the humanities) specifies no exceptions to the general rules.
Examples
- These Times We Live In
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
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.
Examples
- APA, AP: The Girl From Mars
Chicago, MLA: The Girl from Mars - APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: The Woman in Red
but
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.
Example
- APA, AP: Isolate if You Are Sick
Chicago, MLA: Isolate If 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.
Examples
- Chicago: Broke Yet Happy
APA, AP, MLA: Broke yet Happy - Chicago, APA, AP, MLA: Am I Normal Yet?
but
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.)
Examples
- Chicago, MLA, AP: Something to Answer For
APA: Something to Answer for - Chicago, MLA, APA, AP: The Places We Come From
but
In all four styles, capitalize the first word (whatever it may be), and lowercase articles.
Example
- APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: The 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.
Examples
- Clear light of day
- We need to talk about Kevin
- The quiet American
The first word of a subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is also capitalized.
Examples
- Traveling with ghosts: A memoir
- Understanding comics: The invisible art
If a title begins with a numeral, lowercase the next word.
Examples
- 27 books to read before you die
- Practice guidelines for the pickling of pineapples: 2019 update
Professional and social titles that precede a name are capitalized as well.
Example
- The island of Doctor Moreau
- The strange life of President Farley
- The story of Father Femy and his music
For more on which words to capitalize in a sentence, see this article on the rules of capitalization.