Punctuating Titles of Works

Writing titles the right way can feel tricky, because different kinds of works get different treatment. Long works get italics or underlining, and short works get quotation marks.

For a long work, like a book, a movie, a whole TV show, or an album, use italics when you type. If you are writing by hand and cannot make italics, underline the title instead. For example, you would italicize the name of a novel or a film.

For a short work, put the title inside quotation marks. Short works include poems, short stories, songs, articles, and single episodes of a TV show. So the name of a song would look like this: "Happy Day."

One more tip: capitalize the important words in a title, like the first word, the last word, and all the main words in between. Little words like a, an, and the stay lowercase unless they come first or last. Pick one style and use it the same way through your whole piece of writing.

When you write the title of a published work, like a book, movie, TV show, song, or artwork, two things matter: which letters are capitalized and what punctuation wraps the title.

Capitalize most words in a title. The first word and the last word always get a capital letter, no matter what they are. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs get capitals too. Small words like a, an, the, and, but, and or usually stay lowercase, as long as they are not the first or last word.

For punctuation, think about the size of the work. Big works that stand alone, like books, movies, newspapers, and albums, are written in italics. If you write by hand, underline them instead. Small works that live inside bigger ones, like a single poem, a short story, a song, or one article, go inside quotation marks.

So a book title gets italics, but one chapter or one poem from that book gets quotation marks.

Italics are letters that slant a little to the right, like this. Writers use them for a few special jobs, and one of the most important is marking the titles of long creative works.

Use italics for the titles of books, long poems, plays, movies, TV shows, albums, newspapers, and magazines. These are the big works. If you are writing by hand and cannot slant your letters, underline the title instead. Underlining means the same thing as italics.

Short works are different. A single song, a short poem, a short story, or one article goes in quotation marks, not italics. A quick way to remember: the big container gets italics, and the small piece inside it gets quotation marks. An album title is italicized, but one song from that album gets quotation marks.

When you write a report or a story, check each title, decide if the work is long or short, and then mark it the same way every time.

Quotation marks are the little pairs of marks that look like this: " ". They always come in pairs, one to open and one to close, and they wrap around exact words.

Their most famous job is showing the exact words someone said or wrote. But they have another job that matters for titles. Quotation marks go around the titles of short works, like poems, short stories, songs, articles, and single TV episodes.

Ask yourself: is this work short, and does it live inside a bigger work? A song is part of an album, and an article is part of a magazine. Short pieces like these get quotation marks. The bigger works they live in, like the album or the magazine, get italics or underlining instead.

So you might write: My favorite song on the album is "Sunshine Day." The song title sits inside quotation marks, and the album title would be in italics. Use the same rule every time so your writing stays clear and consistent.