Academic Support Center
Writing Center
Titles: Use of Italics versus Quotation Marks
Resources: The OWL at Purdue website and The LB Brief Handbook, 5th edition
Deciding when to italicize, underline, or use quotation marks around titles of
works can be confusing. A general rule is to italicize the titles of long works, and
put quotation marks around the titles of short works. Typically, a long work which
is italicized or underlined will be broken into parts (chapters, articles, scenes,
songs, episodes, or the like) which will be put in quotation marks.
Italicizing
 Be aware that italicizing and underlining serve the same function, but italics
should be used for all typed work.
 Remember not to italicize or underline punctuation that is adjacent to the
title you are formatting. Likewise, do not italicize or underline an ’s when it
is attached to the work:
o Has he read Pride and Prejudice?
o The Leaf Chronicle’s position is not clear.
 Italicize the titles or names of the following:
o Books—The Scarlet Letter, Heart of Darkness
o Magazines or journals—Time, Shakespeare Quarterly
o Newspapers—The New York Times, The Boston Globe
o Websites—Austin Peay State University Website
o Plays or musicals—Hamlet, Waiting for Godot, The Sound of Music
o Television or radio programs—The Colbert Report, Talk of the Nation
o Movies—The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca
o Legal cases—Brown v. Board of Education
o Music albums—The White Album
o Long musical pieces—Nutcracker Suite
o Works of art—The Thinker, Mona Lisa
o Long poems—The Waste Land, Paradise Lost
o Pamphlets—The American Crisis
o Famous speeches—Gettysburg Address
Created by Austin Peay State University, 3 April 2012; revised 24 January 2017
o Comic strips—Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts
o Ships, spacecraft, trains, and airplanes—H.M.S. Pinafore, U.S.S.
Enterprise (Do not italicize or underline U.S.S. or H.M.S. in names of
these crafts.)
Quotation Marks
 Commas and periods adjacent to titles will typically go inside the quotation
marks (unlike in the use of italics or underlining):
o I like the song “You Are My Sunshine.”
o She can’t stand “A Rose for Emily,” but she is a fan of Faulkner.
 However, question marks and exclamation marks go outside the quotation
marks:
o Why did you choose to write about “We Are Seven”?
o I can’t believe he read “The Road Not Taken”!
 Put quotation marks around the titles of names of the following:
o Book chapters—“Story of the Door”
o Short stories—“The Garden Party,” “The Invalid’s Story”
o Articles in magazines or journals—“Shakespeare Celebrations in
Times of War”
o Essays—“How to Tell a Story”
o Articles in newspapers—“Suspect in Killings of Homeless Men Has
Family Link to Homelessness”
o Web pages—“Academic Support Center”
o Scenes from plays—“The Screen Scene”
o One Act Plays—“A Marriage Proposal”
o Episodes in television or radio programs—“Iowa Raucous”
o Songs—“Blackbird,” “The Star-Spangled Banner”
o Poems—“Simon Lee,” “After Apple Picking”
o Any other sections that derive from longer works
Created by Austin Peay State University, 3 April 2012; revised 24 January 2017