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A Simple Guide to Capitalization in Titles

3-minute read

• 1st July 2023

Deciding how to capitalize words in titles can be more complicated than you’d think. Do you capitalize every word? Just the first? What about in subheadings? While the rules and preferences on this vary among style guides, we’ve put together a simple guide to help you out.

Sentence Case

When a title is capitalized using sentence case , it means you capitalize it exactly as you would for a normal sentence. The only words that should be capitalized are the first word and any proper nouns . For example:

Sentence case is arguably easier to follow than title case – which we’ll get into next.

Title case means that you capitalize the first word and all major words in the title. What defines a major word, though, varies between style guides, so check your style guide or your institution’s requirements. Generally, though, title case follows these rules:

●  Capitalize the first word.

●  Capitalize all proper nouns.

●  Capitalize pronouns.

●  Capitalize all principal words and longer words (usually four letters or more).

●  Keep short articles, prepositions , and conjunctions lowercase.

Here are a couple of examples of title case:

Let’s look at a few of the common style guides and their rules for title case.

●  Capitalize principal words.

●  Capitalize all words with four letters or more (including prepositions and conjunctions).

●  Keep articles, prepositions, and conjunctions with three letters or less lowercase.

●  Capitalize the first and last words of the title (even if it breaks the above rules).

●  Capitalize To for infinitives.

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●  Capitalize all nouns, verbs and verb phrases, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns.

●  Keep articles, conjunctions, and prepositions with three letters or less lowercase.

●  Capitalize all words with four letters or more.

●  Capitalize the first and last words.

●  Capitalize nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions .

●  Keep all articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions lowercase.

These are just a few, and most styles have even further peculiarities. So, if you’re using a guide, make sure you check it carefully. For a more thorough breakdown of the major style guides and their rules on capitalization, check out this page .

Summary: Capitalization in Titles

To sum up, sentence case means you only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns. Title case means you capitalize every word except for short or minor words.

Unless you’re following a guide or an institution’s requirements, you can choose to capitalize your titles based on your preference. Just remember to keep things consistent.

If you’re unsure about your capitalization, why not have one of our editors take a look at your work? We’ll also check your work for grammar, spelling, consistency, and more. Try it out for free today.

What is sentence case?

Sentence case means that you capitalize a title like a normal sentence, with everything lowercase except for the first word and any proper nouns.

What is title case?

Title case means that all words in a title are capitalized except for short or minor words, such as articles (e.g., a , an , the ).

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What to Capitalize in a Title: APA Title Capitalization Rules

Which words do you capitalize in a title?

Have you ever been confused about which words to capitalize in the title of your manuscript ? You have probably seen titles where only the first word is capitalized (so-called “sentence case”), titles where all words seem to be capitalized (“title case”), and also titles that look like combinations of the two. And you might have wondered where there is any general rule to all this. 

The answer is that, no, there is not really one general capitalization rule, but there are several style-dependent capitalization guidelines you can rely on, and the journal you plan to submit to will tell you (in their author instructions ) which one they want you to apply to your manuscript before submission. Just like you format your manuscript and reference list following APA or MLA formatting rules, you apply the respective style guide to capitalize your title, headings, and subheadings . In this article, we will first explain the general rules on what types of words to capitalize (e.g., nouns, articles, and conjunctions) and then look at the APA and MLA style guides in particular and their specific variations of those rules.

Research Paper Title Capitalization Rules

According to most style guides, all proper nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in titles of books and articles are to be capitalized. Some elements of titles are, however, never capitalized, such as articles (except articles at the beginning of a title), and some, such as conjunctions, can or cannot be capitalized, depending on the specific style guide variation. In the following, we will outline the general rules for all the different words in your title so that you can orient yourself easily to the different style guides and adapt your title quickly when necessary. 

Capitalizing Nouns and Pronouns in Titles

Nouns (including formal names of people, organizations, and places) and pronouns are easy to format, as all style guides agree that they should always be capitalized using title case capitalization. 

Capitalizing Articles in Titles

The rules for articles are also simple, as all major style guides agree that articles should be lowercase in titles—unless they represent the first and/or last word in the title:

In the latter example, the first “the” is capitalized because it is the first word of the title, while the second “the” is lowercase as articles usually are. Note that the same rule regarding article capitalization applies to subtitles as well.

Capitalizing Conjunctions in Titles

Conjunctions are a slightly more complicated case, as style guides differ on whether to capitalize them or on which conjunctions to capitalize. According to some guides,  conjunctions of three letters or fewer are to be written in lowercase while longer ones should be capitalized. Other style guides, however, state to write all conjunctions in lowercase, or make exceptions for specific conjunctions such as “yet”, “so”, and “as”. It is therefore always necessary to look up the specific rules of the target journal before submitting a manuscript—and have a look at our sections on APA and MLA style below. The following examples are, however, fairly universal:

Capitalizing Prepositions in Titles

Capitalization rules for prepositions are equally ambiguous and depend on the specific style guide you follow. Prepositions of four letters or more are often capitalized, while according to some style guides, all prepositions are written in lowercase, no matter their length. Sometimes, for example, when following the Chicago Manual of Style , capitalization depends on how a preposition is used in a title and whether it does indeed function as a preposition. According to this rule, prepositions are capitalized when they are used “adverbially or adjectivally” in prepositional phrases (as in “How to Back Up a Computer”), but not when used otherwise.

Capitalizing Adjectives and Adverbs in Titles     

Rules for capitalizing adjectives and adverbs , like nouns, are unproblematic, as they are capitalized across style guides. 

Capitalizing Verbs in Titles      

Verbs are another easy case and are also always capitalized, according to all style guides. 

Title Case Rules by Style Guide

Apa title case rules   .

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used for scholarly articles in the behavioral and social sciences. The APA guidelines on when to capitalize a title include the following rules:

MLA Title Case Rules  

The Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook , used primarily to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities, promotes the following rules for when to capitalize a title or header:

Additional Rules for Title Capitalization 

As we have stressed several times throughout this article, it is crucial to always check the specific rules of the target journal and/or the rules of the style guide the target journal wants you to follow—note that these can sometimes conflict with each other, in which case the journal rules override the style guide. Apart from the two common style guides we explained here, APA and MLA , there are several others that have their own rules, such as the Chicago Manual of Style , the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style , or the Associated Press Stylebook , an American English grammar style and usage guide originally developed for AP writers but now used widely across journalistic fields. There is even a specific set of rules for the capitalization of titles of Wikipedia articles !

One capitalization rule that might not necessarily be mentioned in such style guides but is relevant for some academic/scientific fields is that when the Latin name of a species is mentioned, the second portion of the name must be written in lowercase, even when the rest of the title follows title case rules.

Another capitalization rule you might need when describing research experiments is that both elements of spelled-out numbers or simple fractions should be capitalized in title case:

Lastly, no matter your personal preference, make sure you always write the titles of books and articles exactly as they are written on the original document/in the original version, even if they do not seem to follow common capitalization rules.

Correct Capitalization in Your Title with Professional Editing    

If you are even more unsure now how to capitalize your title or find the author instructions of your target journal confusing (which can happen, since those sets of rules have often grown organically over a long period of time and, as a result, can lack consistency), then you might want to make use of professional English proofreading services , including paper editing services —your professional academic editor will figure such details out for you and make sure your manuscript is in the correct format before submission.

If you need more input on how to write and perfect the other parts of your manuscript, then head over to the Wordvice academic resources website where we have many more resources for you.

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Posted on Mar 03, 2023

Title Capitalization Rules: Learn Which Words To Capitalize

Like many aspects of the English language, title capitalization rules can seem confusing and unintuitive. While the words that are (and are not) capitalized in a title aren’t always consistent, it’s really not as complicated as you might think.

Whether you’re titling a book , writing a headline for a blog post or article, or referring to a movie, song, or other published work , you’ll need to follow standard title capitalization rules. To help you along, let’s break down the basic rules and explain some exceptions. 

These are the three title capitalization rules you’ll need to remember:

• Capitalize the first and last words of a title
• Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

1. Capitalize the first and last words of a title

The simplest rule you can follow with complete certainty is this: the first and last words of a title are always capitalized. It doesn’t matter what length the title is or what grammatical role the word plays. From the humble article “the” to longer nouns like “tyrannosaurus,” you’re 100% safe capitalizing the first and last word.

Example: Andy Williams’s 1966 hit single, “ Music to Watch Girls By ”

All style guides agree on this rule, and it’s because it just makes sense. By capitalizing the first and last words, you create a visual mark that shows the reader where the title begins and ends. Even if it’s used within a longer sentence, it can’t be confused with the text surrounding it.

💡 Note: When words are capitalized to form a title, their format is called “title case” or “headline case.” This is in contrast to “sentence case,” which is what you’ll see in this very paragraph.

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Capitalize the first word of subtitles, too

The rule for subtitles is very simple: the subtitle’s first word is also always capitalized, no exceptions. Subtitles, written after a colon, are especially common in nonfiction books and academic works. 

Example: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s classic work of feminist literary criticism,  “The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination .”  

If this title was written in sentence case, the first word after the colon would not normally be capitalized. And if we were following rule number 3 (spoiler alert), the word “the” would be in lowercase.

If you’re worried about your institution’s style guide of choice, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Capitalizing the first word of a subtitle is one of those rules where APA, MLA, Chicago, and AP style guides are in beautiful, unanimous agreement.

This is not the only rule they agree on — the next one is also universal.

2. Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

There are many common parts of speech that are always capitalized in a title. Let’s take a quick look at them, one by one.

The ‘action words’ of language, verbs are capitalized in every style guide. This also applies to phrasal verbs, where a verb and a preposition are used together, like “Get Up,” “Stand Up,” “Let Go,” and “Carry Out.”

A commonly asked question is whether the word “is” needs to be capitalized. “Is” and its cousins (“I am,” “you are,” etc.) are all conjugated forms of the verb “to be,” so the answer is yes. The same applies to the verb “do” and its variations “did” and “does.”

Here are a few examples of book titles that include verbs:

• “This Is How You Lose the Time War” by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• “Where'd You Go , Bernadette” by Maria Semple
• “ Don’t Cry for Me” by Daniel Black
• “I'll Tell You in Person” by Chloe Caldwell
• “ Do You Want to Start a Scandal” by Tessa Dare
•  “History Is All You Left Me” by Adam Silvera

All style guides agree on capitalizing pronouns in titles. If you’re a native speaker, it’s possible you assume the term simply refers to “he,” “she,” “they,” and “his,” “hers,” and “theirs.” These are pronouns indeed, but there are many more types.

We won’t dwell (no one likes a grammar lesson), but to learn more about further types of pronouns, like relative, indefinite, demonstrative, or interrogative pronouns, you can check out Thesaurus.com’s entry on pronoun types . Fun fact: words like “someone,” “whenever,” “whose,” and “ whom ” are pronouns, too. Hopefully, this knowledge will come in handy when you next capitalize a tricky title.

Here are a few examples of book titles with pronouns:

• “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor
• “Guess How Much I Love You ” by Sam McBratney
• “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway
• “ Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston 
• “Go Tell It  on the Mountain” by James Baldwin 
• “ Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good” by Jan Karon

If you  do  happen to like grammar lessons, however, check out this article about the Oxford comma to learn more about when and how to use it like a pro.

Nouns and adjectives

You already know these ones, so we won’t patronize you. They’re also straightforward when it comes to capitalization: nouns and adjectives are capitalized in all style guides. Wonderful, right?

Let’s look at a few title examples that feature nouns:

• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
• “How the García Girls Lost Their Accents ” by Julia Alvarez
• “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler ” by Italo Calvino
• “ Diary of a Young Naturalist ” by Dara McAnulty

And some book titles that capitalize adjectives:

• “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote
• “A Cavern of Black Ice” by J. V. Jones
• “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” by Scott McCloud
• “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon

You may know adverbs as the words that end in -ly. They describe the way or manner in which something is done or happens. Just don’t forget that adverbs of manner aren’t the only type of adverb. 

If your title includes any of the words below, you’re dealing with adverbs of frequency, time, place, or degree:

You don’t need to remember what category each adverb falls under — you just need to be able to recognize them as an adverb, since all adverbs are capitalized across all style guides.

Here are a few titles that feature adverbs, whether they end in -ly or not:

• “Isla and the Happily Ever After ” by Stephanie Perkins
• “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” by Iris Murdoch
• “ Tomorrow , and Tomorrow , and Tomorrow ” by Gabrielle Zevin
• “A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York” by Anjelica Huston

So far, we’ve looked at the two major rules where all style guides agree: capitalizing the first and final words of a title, as well as any “principal” or important words, like nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The next rule is where it gets a little bit more complicated.

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3. Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

Unless you’re working with a style guide that says otherwise (or if they’re the first or final word in a title), the following types of words are not capitalized:

• Articles — the tiny words that come before nouns to indicate whether it’s a general concept or a particular, specific thing, e.g., “ the garden” vs. “ a garden”
• Prepositions — words that precede nouns to show direction or place, or to establish a relationship between two things, e.g., “ opposite the library,” “ next to the cat” 
• Coordinating conjunctions — words that link two parts of a sentence that can stand on their own, e.g., “I was tired. Alice went to bed” vs. “I was tired and Alice went to bed.”

Here are the words that fall under these categories:

📚 For more examples and information on prepositions, head to this page by the University of Ottawa.

Here are a few book titles that do not capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions (unless they are the first or last words of the title):

• “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust
• “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James
• “Again, but Better” by Christine Riccio
• Subordinating conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions, on the other hand, are capitalized. These are words that introduce a new part to the sentence that is dependent on the main sentence, or clause. Subordinating conjunctions include: if, since, as, when, although, while, after, before, until, because.

Because titles are not typically multi-clause sentences, it’s harder to intuit which group a conjunction belongs to. The simplest way to know when to capitalize conjunctions is to just remember which are coordinating and which subordinating. 

Subordinating conjunctions do get capitalized, as in these title examples:

• “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke” by Eric LaRocca
• “As Good As Dead” by Holly Jackson
• “What If ?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions” by Randall Munroe
• “Live Right and Find Happiness ( Although Beer Is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings” by Dave Barry

4. When in doubt, refer to your style guide

If you're writing for a specific institution, keep their style guide bookmarked. For your convenience, here's what the four most commonly used style guides in North America require when it comes to capitalizing titles correctly:

Chicago Manual of Style

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

Don’t capitalize:

• Articles, prepositions of any length, and coordinating conjunctions
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure to Launch” )

Modern Languages Association (MLA) Handbook

American psychological association (apa) publication manual.

• Words that consist of more than four letters, even conjunctions and prepositions
• Words shorter than four letters

The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook

• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure To Launch” )
• Articles and prepositions shorter than four letters
• Coordinating conjunctions

You’ll notice that the first two, Chicago and MLA, are the same — whereas AP and APA share an enthusiasm for capitalizing words longer than four letters.

Now compare these book titles:

See the difference? 

• Chicago and MLA don’t capitalize “along” because it’s a preposition. 
• AP and APA do capitalize it because it’s longer than four letters long. 
• “For” is a coordinating conjunction (so lowercase for Chicago and MLA) and not long enough to be capitalized in AP and APA.
• All four style guides capitalize the first and last words of the title, as well as the first word of the subtitle.

🎯 Want to test yourself? Head over to our book title generator and give it a whirl. Write down what titles you’re given and then ask yourself how they’d be formatted for each style guide. 

Those are all the rules, so you can go ahead and capitalize your title. Beyond your title, if you’ve got a whole manuscript in need of polishing, consider hiring a copy editor to take care of the finer details.

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If you want to expand your knowledge of niche linguistic matters even further, head over to the world of punctuation with our post on using hyphens and dashes correctly. Just don’t forget your linguist geek hat.

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• Capitalization

Title Case: Capitalization of Titles, Headings, and Headlines

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 .

• Title case: T he C urious I ncident of the D og in the N ight- T ime
• Title case: T he S trange C ase of D r. J ekyll and M r. H yde

Capitalize lower-level headings using sentence case , in which you capitalize only the words you would normally capitalize in a sentence.

• Sentence case: T he curious incident of the dog in the night-time
• Sentence case: T he strange case of D r. J ekyll and M r. H yde

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 .

• L ove in the T ime of C holera
• T hree M en in a B oat
• P ride and P rejudice
• R equiem for a D ream
• C atch M e I f Y ou C an
• The P ortrait of a L ady
• The W ay W e L ive N ow
• The G irl W ho P layed with F ire
• M en without W omen
• The G round beneath H er F eet
• E verything I s I lluminated

The first and last words of a title are always capitalized, no matter what they are.

• A Clockwork Orange
• T he Mill on the Floss
• I n Search of Lost Time
• T hrough a Glass Darkly
• F rom Blood and Ash
• B ut What If There’s No Chimney?
• A nd Then There Were None
• Something to Answer F or
• Something to Believe I n
• All We Dream O f
• Where We Come F rom

It may not always be clear at first glance whether a word should be capitalized. Check what function it serves in the title.

• Capitalize over as an adverb , but lowercase it as a preposition. Adverb: The Soup Boiled O ver Preposition: The Light o ver London

The word to is lowercased, regardless of what function it serves in the sentence (unless it is the first or last word).

• Train t o Busan
• Zero t o One: Notes on Startups, or How t o Build the Future
• A Good Man Is Hard t o 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.

• The M an- E ater of Malgudi Eater is a noun and should be capitalized.
• The Academy’s O ut- o f- U niform Procedure Lowercase of , which is a preposition, but capitalize uniform , a noun.
• The S tep- b y- S tep Guide to Finding Fairies
• The T hirty- N ine Steps
• The A nti- I nflammatory Diet Cookbook
• Originals: How N on- C onformists Move the World
• The F ire- B reathing Dragon

Any subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is always capitalized.

• Computer: A History of the Information Machine
• The Lord of the Rings: T he Return of the King
• The View from the Cheap Seats: S elected Nonfiction
• A Memoir: O f 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.

• How to Be the Go- T o Person in Your Organization
• A Run- I n with Religion and Other True Stories

Capitalize all the words that make up a phrasal verb , even a word that is a preposition.

• What to Do When You R un I nto Someone You Don’t Like
• How to S et U p Your Spaceship’s AI
• Don’t P ut O ff 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 .

• There Will B e Blood
• Tender I s the Night
• Where the Wild Things A re
• Then She W as Gone
• Their Eyes W ere Watching God

Also capitalize the have and do verbs in all their forms: have , has , had , do , does , did .

• The Heart H as Its Reasons
• Owls D o 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.

• Companies T hat Fleece Their Customers
• The House T hat 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 .

• How I t All Began
• Some of M y Favorite Things
• The Best W e Can Do
• The General in H is Labyrinth
• The Woman W ho Did

No and not in a title

Capitalize the words no and not (a determiner and an adverb) whenever these words appear in titles.

• Beasts of N o Nation
• Oranges Are N ot 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.

• One Flew O ver the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Girl Who Played W ith Fire
• Men W ithout Women
• The Ground B eneath Her Feet
• So Far F rom God
• Once U pon a Time in the West
• Much Ado A bout Nothing
• The Light B etween Oceans
• The Cat Who Walks T hrough Walls
• A Woman U nder the Influence
• Three Billboards O utside Ebbing, Missouri
• The World U ntil Yesterday
• The Man i n the Brown Suit
• The Wizard o f Oz
• A Home f or Lunatics
• The Woman o n the Beach

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.

• We Should All B e Feminists
• If I H ad Your Face
• Marley and M e
• The Man W ho Sold H is 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 ).

• Pride a nd Prejudice
• I’d Tell You I Love You, b ut Then I’d Have to Kill You
• Catch Me i f You Can

Also, do lowercase articles and any prepositions up to three letters long: a , an , the , for , in , of , to , etc.

• The Bridge o n t he River Kwai
• Stranger i n a Strange Land
• The Catcher i n t he Rye
• A House f or Mr. Biswas

Finally, in AP Style, the first and last words are capitalized as usual, regardless of length.

• A n American Tragedy
• T he Invisible Man
• A s I Lay Dying
• O f Human Bondage
• O n the Waterfront
• F or the Green Planet
• These Times We Live I n

However, in APA style, the last word is capitalized only if it is a major word or longer than three letters.

• Something to Answer f or
• These Times We Live i n 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.

• Sense a nd Sensibility
• The Hobbit, o r There a nd Back Again
• Though We Be Dead, Y et Our Day Will Come
• Even I f We Break

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.

• The A nti- i nflammatory Diet Cookbook
• The Thirty- N ine Steps The word thirty can stand by itself, so capitalize nine as well.

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.

• The Things We Believe I n Capitalize the last word, even a preposition.
• Only One Way T hrough
• It’s You I’m Dreaming O f

The MLA Handbook (used in academic writing for the humanities) specifies no exceptions to the general rules .

• T hese T imes W e L ive I n
• A H eartbreaking W ork of S taggering G enius
• T he M oon I s a H arsh M istress

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.

• APA, AP: The Girl F rom Mars Chicago, MLA: The Girl f rom Mars
• APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: The Woman i n Red

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.

• APA, AP: Isolate i f You Are Sick Chicago, MLA: Isolate I f 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.

• Chicago: Broke Y et Happy APA, AP, MLA: Broke y et Happy
• Chicago, APA, AP, MLA: Am I Normal Y et?

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.)

• Chicago, MLA, AP: Something to Answer F or APA: Something to Answer f or
• Chicago, MLA, APA, AP: The Places We Come F rom

In all four styles, capitalize the first word (whatever it may be), and lowercase articles.

• APA, AP, Chicago, MLA: T he 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.

• C lear light of day
• W e need to talk about K evin
• T he quiet A merican

The first word of a subtitle or subheading that follows a colon is also capitalized.

• Traveling with ghosts: A memoir
• Understanding comics: T he invisible art

If a title begins with a numeral, lowercase the next word.

• 27 b ooks to read before you die
• P ractice guidelines for the pickling of pineapples: 2019 u pdate

Professional and social titles that precede a name are capitalized as well.

• The island of D octor Moreau
• The strange life of P resident Farley
• The story of F ather Femy and his music

For more on which words to capitalize in a sentence, see this article on the rules of capitalization .

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In title case, all major words are capitalized.

In sentence case, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.

The word it , which is a pronoun, is capitalized in title case.

The words we (a pronoun) and be (a verb) are capitalized in title case.

The word a , which is an article, is lowercased unless it is the first word of the title.

The words let (a verb) and me (a pronoun) are capitalized in title case.

The first word of a subtitle following a colon is capitalized in both title case and sentence case.

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Capitalization in Titles

Capital letters and lowercase letters in titles (title case).

• Articles (i.e., "an," "a," "the").
• Conjunctions (e.g., "and," "or," "but").
• Prepositions (e.g., "in," "with," "of").

More about Title Case

More Examples of Title Case

Clear guidelines to make your life easier.

This page was written by Craig Shrives .

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CGTC FAQs: Academic Support

What words do i capitalize in my essay title.

When capitalizing words in a title you create for an essay, there are common rules that overlap between various writing styles, such as AP (Associated Press), APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), and Chicago.

Regardless of the writing style you are using for a class, here are set rules for capitalizing words in your essay's title:

1) Always capitalize the first word and the last word in a title. Here are examples of titles that have their first words and last words capitalized.

Example: Gone with the Wind 

Example: Into the Woods

Example: Something in the Way 

2) Always capitalize what are called the "important words": nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions. Let's look at an example:

Example: All Quiet on the Western Front

The first word and last word are capitalized ("All" and "Front") as well as the two adjectives ("Quiet" and "Western"). The words "on" and "the" are not capitalized in this title, which leads us to the third rule...

3) Do NOT capitalize prepositions, articles, and coordinating conjunctions.

Example: The Fire in the Sky and a Rainfall

Keep in mind that while articles (a, an, the) are not capitalized in a title, the first word and last word always are. Therefore, the first word of this title ("The") is an article, but it must be capitalized since it is the first word.

However, the second "the" in this title is not capitalized since it is an article and is not the first or last word of the title. This is also why the words "in," "and," and "a" are not capitalized: Respectively, they are a preposition, a coordinating conjunction, and an article that are not the first or last word. 

Here are a few more examples of various titles. Consider why certain words are capitalized while others are not.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Rise and Fall of the Halo Series

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

A Doll's House

All Because of Love

Call Me by Your Name

Catch Me if You Can

If you need further assistance with understanding which words to capitalize in your essay title, watch the attached video.

Links & Files

• English Title Capitalization Rules - How to Properly Capitalize a Title or Headline
• Academic Support
• Last Updated Jun 01, 2023
• Answered By Jonna

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The Age of Brooke Shields

The model and actress has three new titles: Netflix rom-com star, union boss and C.E.O. of a beauty brand aimed at women over 40.

Credit... OK McCausland for The New York Times

Supported by

By Jessica Testa

• June 2, 2024

Some stories are so perfect and poignant that even if we suspect they are not true, we simply do not want to know.

There is a white peacock perched inside Brooke Shields’s home in New York City. She named it Steve. He sits frozen on an acrylic pedestal, feathers draped to the floor. Ms. Shields was told he was rescued from other peafowl, who can turn aggressive toward their old, pecking them to death.

“I’m probably being lied to through the beak,” said Ms. Shields, whose pun usage can be contagious. But the story made sense to her. She sighed at the taxidermy. “The really beautiful ones are all male. Doesn’t it figure?”

There is no universal experience of aging. But surely some American women can relate to feeling pecked or prodded, and pushed aside when they reach middle age.

At least that was a sentiment shared with Ms. Shields in 2021, when she founded an online community called Beginning Is Now. More than 100,000 people followed the group’s Instagram account, which posted inspirational content for women over 40.

It felt very much like a women’s magazine — with interviews, listicles, giveaways and recurring columns ( Dear Brooke and Brooke Don’t Cook ) — though without all of the advertising. Beginning Is Now mostly sold merch: workout sets and bright yellow hoodies.

Occasionally Ms. Shields would host group Zoom calls with her followers. They would ask questions like, “Do you feel like you’re being overlooked?” Ms. Shields would answer: “As a woman, yes, I feel that somehow, once we hit a certain age, it’s assumed that we’re no longer sexy.” Another woman would chime in: “‘It’s as if the light switches have been turned off,’” Ms. Shields said.

“It wasn’t angry,” she said of the tenor of the conversations. “I was worried that there would be this undercurrent of anger. There was more of an undercurrent of bewilderment.”

It was during these Zoom calls that Beginning Is Now began to morph. Certain “fraught” age-related issues kept coming up, Ms. Shields said. Like hair — thinning, coarsening, graying hair.

“Very soon people said, ‘Well, what can we buy?’” she said.

The skin of her nascent media brand began shedding. Infographics and merch were no longer enough for Ms. Shields, who had put a small team of executives together and mined the community for ideas. In June, a new company will emerge, called Commence. It will sell three hair-care products on its website.

In the modern beauty industry, there is precedent for pivoting from content to commerce: Glossier, valued at $1.8 billion in 2021, was born from the blog Into the Gloss. Its first skin-care products were developed using feedback from the website’s commenters.

But for anyone familiar with Ms. Shields’s career, Commence also makes one of those perfect and poignant stories.

Ever since she could crawl, Ms. Shields has been the face of household products: a model for Ivory soap at 11 months, Band-Aids at 5, Colgate toothpaste at 10, Calvin Klein jeans at 15, Coppertone sunscreen at 43, La-Z-Boy furniture at 45, and that is just a highlight reel. In the 1980s, her name was put on blow dryers and curling irons and hair crimpers. “By the way, I loathe the color purple, and all of the products were purple,” she said. “I didn’t know I had anything to say about it.”

Now, at 59, Ms. Shields is a chief executive overseeing how her products are made and how her name is used to sell them. It is capitalist empowerment.

“I’ve sold for other people my whole life,” Ms. Shields said.

‘An Accessibility’

I did not expect to find Teri Shields, famed stage mother, at her daughter’s house in the West Village of Manhattan. But there she was, blending into a marble-topped bar in the living room. Among liquor bottles and barware sat Teri’s urn. Ms. Shields lifted the lid to show me.

“Closest to the things that she liked the most,” said Ms. Shields, whose mother died in 2012 at age 79. “Booze and me.”

Their relationship formed the emotional spine of “ Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields ,” a documentary released on Hulu last April that re-examined her early life.

The title mirrored that of a 1978 film in which Ms. Shields played a 12-year-old prostitute in early 20th-century New Orleans — the first time she, and her mother’s parenting choices , made international headlines. She became a sex symbol before she became a teenager.

Ms. Shields also discloses in the documentary that in her 20s, after graduating from Princeton University, she was raped by a Hollywood executive. She did not say his name, and to her relief and surprise, viewers moved past the revelation fairly quickly.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is a first — so that’s not all I am,” Ms. Shields said. “Whereas when I was younger, my sexuality was all I was — that and beauty.”

Unlike many other celebrity documentaries , Ms. Shields did not produce the project or control the final edit. It was co-produced by people she trusted, however, including her friends Ali Wentworth and the ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos.

“I used to always say to her, ‘You should either be in rehab or dead based on your childhood,’” Ms. Wentworth said. “She can be at a dinner party and tell a story, and you’re laughing — it’s really entertaining — but then you go, ‘Oh, this is actually a very tragic story.’ She can disassociate in a way that has protected her for her whole life.”

Ms. Shields is funny and candid . But her singular gift is her ability to relate to people, even if they’ll never be able to relate to her. Even among her famous friends — like her neighbor, Bradley Cooper, who might be casually taking a call in Ms. Shields’s garden on a Tuesday afternoon, unbeknown to The New York Times reporter sitting on her couch inside — Ms. Shields’s very unusual girlhood sets her apart. It isolates her. No one else on this planet was christened by Time magazine as the “look” of the 1980s.

And yet there is still “an accessibility with Brooke that people love,” Ms. Wentworth said. “People feel like they know her, and that somehow, whatever she tells you to use or drink or wear, is real. A friend is telling you to do that.”

Ms. Shields is well aware of her public perception, with all of its benefits ( instant press when she starts a beauty brand) and drawbacks (the need to convince investors and consumers that this is not just another celebrity beauty brand in a market saturated by celebrity beauty brands).

There is always a moment — and Ms. Shields always notices it — when people settle into her company for the first time. They relax their grip on the idea of Brooke Shields and begin to adjust to the reality of her.

“Sometimes it’s a flicker in the eye, sometimes it’s an exhale,” she said. Sometimes it’s the moment your eyes stop flicking between Steve the peacock and Ms. Shields’s rhinestone Prada loafers and the Keith Haring and Will Cotton artworks on her walls. “And then we can just do our jobs.”

Privately, that was one of her motivations for pursuing the presidency of the Actors' Equity Association, a labor union representing stage performers and managers. (Ms. Shields’s Broadway credits include Rizzo in “Grease,” Roxie in “Chicago” and Morticia in “The Addams Family.”) She saw an opportunity to champion the people who make theater possible and to use her name to bring attention to union issues. But she also liked that this job would not be explicitly about her.

“ That appeals to me,” said Ms. Shields, who won the election on May 24 . “It’s a lot of me all the time. And it has been that way since I was an infant.”

‘A Woman of Substance’

The summer box office may be off to a disastrous start , but as of May 23, the most-watched original film on any streaming platform was a romantic comedy starring Brooke Shields.

“Mother of the Bride” has remained in Netflix’s top 10 movies, peaking at No. 1, since its release on May 9.

Of all the moving pieces of Ms. Shields’s life, acting is still the thing that makes her feel like a “complete person,” she said. “I go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it.”

Until that moment, Ms. Shields had generally been composed and analytical in conversation — she once stopped midsentence to deconstruct the definition of “catharsis.” But when discussing her acting career, there was a new urgency in her voice: “I must continue to pursue it tirelessly,” she said, sitting up in a makeup chair in a hotel bathroom, preparing for a photo shoot. There was so much pent-up desire that she seemed to struggle to express the size of it.

“If I could be in ‘Hacks,’” she said, almost bursting, “that is what I want for my life. That level of humor.” She recalled watching a scene from that Max series in which an iPhone is unlocked not by Face ID — the owner’s face is recovering from an eye lift — but by the face of her wax museum figure. “I now know there is actually a God.”

It is not that Ms. Shields doesn’t speak about Commence with the same enthusiasm. It is just a different flavor of enthusiasm. She has raised about $3.5 million from investors. She can cite relevant statistics (by 2025 there will be 80 million women over 40 in the United States) and has learned the unlyrical language of the business: capitalization tables, convertible notes, price equity round, total addressable market.

But she doesn’t see herself in this position forever. “I’ll always be the founder,” she said. “But at a certain point, we are going to grow so exponentially that it’s going to take a kick-ass C.E.O. to bring us to that next level.”

Last year, Ms. Shields appointed a company president, Denise Landman, who was the founder and former chief executive of Victoria’s Secret Pink. That brand was tailored to young women, 18 or 19, who were “half woman, half child,” Ms. Landman said. “You really haven’t been humbled around too much by the world writ large.”

By contrast, Ms. Landman identifies the Commence customer as “a woman of substance,” someone who has accumulated knowledge and experience and pride over her decades, “much as soil layers up and becomes more nurturing over time,” she said. “That substance is earned.”

To Ms. Landman, who said she is in her late 60s, it is not a worthwhile exercise to dwell on problems like itchy scalps or brittle hair. “The place to dwell is, God gave me a head of hair,” she said. “Let me make the most beautiful head of hair it can be.”

As for Ms. Shields, she can relate to more middle-aged anxieties than one might think, she said.

Yes, she somehow survived the ’80s and ’90s without internalizing toxic beauty standards — spared, she explained, by her mother’s mind-set that her beauty was their path toward financial security. (Modeling was just a job with no relation to her self-worth.) And yes, she doesn’t entirely mind the experience of gaining 5 or 10 pounds. (“I immediately look younger,” she said. “It’s like natural filler.”) And yes, those eyebrows are natural and majestic.

But Ms. Shields still knows what it is like to pee a little bit when she sneezes. She still injects the crevice between her eyebrows to make it disappear before doing a movie. And she still has a minor crisis of identity over her daughters, now 18 and 21, leaving home. “If I’m not mom 24/7, who am I?” she said.

“I really identify with so much more than people have given me credit for,” Ms. Shields said. “Might I remind you, I’m still a female and still human.”

Jessica Testa is a Times reporter covering the worlds of style and fashion. More about Jessica Testa

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