Punctuating Titles of Works
Use underlining, quotation marks, or italics to indicate titles of works, applying conventions for different types of works such as books, stories, poems, songs, and articles
What a learner can do afterwards
- Use italics or underlining for titles of books, films, and albums
- Use quotation marks for titles of short works such as poems, songs, and articles
- Apply title formatting conventions consistently in a piece of writing
1 · Read
Books, films, poems, and songs all have titles. When you write about them, you mark the title in a special way so readers can tell it apart from your other words.
Charlotte's Web is a whole book, so you write its title in italics: *Charlotte's Web*. If you are writing by hand, underline the title instead.
"The Road Not Taken" is a poem, a short piece rather than a whole book. Short works like poems, songs, and articles go inside quotation marks instead of italics.
Big, whole works like books, films, and albums get italics or underlining. Short pieces like poems, songs, and articles get quotation marks. Once you pick a style for a title, use it the same way every time in your writing.
Some short pieces live inside a bigger whole work. A chapter of a book or one episode of a show is a short piece, so its title gets quotation marks, while the whole book or show keeps italics. Think of 'Storm Warning', one chapter of *Sea Tales*: the chapter takes quotation marks, the book takes italics.
Whole works get italics or underlining, short works get quotation marks, and you stick with one style throughout your writing.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
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Nothing builds on it yet.
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.