Punctuating Titles: When to Use Italics and "Quotation Marks”
It is easy for students to forget that different types of titles require different typographical
features. It is even harder to remember which type of title requires which type of
punctuation. Despair not! If you remember these two handy rules, you can keep the
difference straight:
1) Short worksare usually in quotation marks.
2) Long works are usually put in italics
"Short Works in Quotes" & Long Works in Italics
Quotation Marks
Italics
Title of a Short Poem
Epic poem or book-length poem
“The Raven”
Title of a Short Story
The Odessey
Title of a Novel
“Young Goodman Brown”
Title of an Essay
The Scarlet Letter
Title of a Collection or Anthology of
Essays
"Money Talks"
Modern Writers and Their Readers
Title of a Song
Title of a CD, cassette, or album
Abbey Road
“Golden Slumbers”
Title of a Ballet or Opera
The Nutcracker Suite or Die
Fliedermaus
Title of a Skit or Monologue
Title of a Play
“Madman’s Lament”
Broadcast Commercial
The Importance of Being Ernest
Play or Film Title
"Obey Your Thirst."
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the
Clones
Title of "Individual Episode" in a
broadcast, such as a television or radio
show
Title of a Television Series or radio
program
“Interview with Bill Clinton”
All Things Considered (radio)
Friends (TV)
Title of a Chapter in a Boo
Title of a book
“The Ruby Mountains”
Encyclopedia Article
Mountain Ranges of Nevada
Title of Encyclopedia
“Etruscan Art”
Title of an Article in a Magazine
Encyclopedia Brittanica
Title of the Magazine
“Teaching Your Toddler”
Title of an Article in a Newspaper
Parenting
Title of the Newspaper
“Horse Roundups Continue”
One or Two Page Handout
Elko Daily Free Press
Pamphlet
“Irregular Verbs”
Conjugating Spanish Verbs
Works of Art, such as sculpture,
paintings, or photographs
Moon and Half Dome
A Few Final Notes:
 In past editions of MLA handbooks, underlining a title and italicizing it were
considered synonymous. That is no longer the case, and the current edition of
MLA favors italics.
 Traditional religious works that are foundational to a religious group or culture are
capitalized, but not italicized underlined. For instance, note the Torah, the Bible,
the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and the Vedas [no italics or quotation marks].
 Visual artwork, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, mixed media, and
whatnot, is italicized, never put in quotation marks. Thus, Van Gogh's Starry
Night and Rodin's The Thinker both have italics.
 The one exception to this policy is the title of your own unpublished student
essay at the top of the first page. You do not need to underline your own title or
put it in quotation marks.
Punctuation within Titles
If you have a title that ends a sentence, and the title is in quotation marks, place the
period inside the quotation marks. If you end a phrase or clause with a title and would
normally place a comma there, place the comma inside the quotation marks.
Examples:

After reading “The Road Less Travelled,” I felt that Robert Frost was speaking
directly about decisions in my own life.

Scholars continue to debate the meaning of the symbolism in Kafka’s
“Metamorphosis.”
Capitalization of Titles
 Normally, most words in a title are capitalized. The most common rule is that
all "important" words should be capitalized, which is not helpful as a criterion.
 In actual practice, MLA requires the first and last word in the title to be
capitalized, along with every noun and every verb, every adjective, and every
adverb.
 MLA typically does not capitalize prepositions and articles; however, outside
of MLA requirements, many other guidelines call for capitalizing every word
that is more than three letters long.
 Another common rule of thumb is to capitalize the first and last words of the
title, and then capitalize everything else except for prepositions and articles.
Sometimes, especially in short titles, every single word might optionally be
capitalized.
Examples:
The Planet of the Apes [The words "of" and "the" are not capitalized.]
The Land that Time Forgot
"Why Not Me?" [Since title is so short, all the words are capitalized.]
"Losing My Religion" [Since title is so short, all the words are capitalized.]
o You can also refer to how the publisher capitalizes the title. When in complete
doubt, just capitalize every word except articles and prepositions; it is better
to capitalize too many words than too few in a title.
o Capitalizing words does not mean putting each letter in capital print, only the
first letter. Do not indicate titles by putting them in all capitals, like DRACULA.
Instead, write Dracula.
o Note that these guidelines reflect Modern Language Association (MLA) format
for English students. Scientific articles follow different conventions in
American Psychological Association (APA) format.
If you are citing a title that originally appeared in APA format, you must change it
to fit the conventions of MLA format. For example:
Reducing underage drinking on college campuses: interviews with college presidents
(title in APA formatting)
Would be changed to:
“Reducing Underage Drinking on College Campuses: Interviews with College
Presidents” (title in MLA formatting)
From: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Punctuating_Titles_chart.pdf. Accessed 9/24/09.