Writing an article, paper, story, or even just an email takes enough time and effort, but after writing, you're still expected to coin a clever but informative title to your work. Don't waste your efforts by misusing or forgetting to use proper title case.
Generally Undisputed Title Case Rules
- Always capitalize the first and last word.
- Capitalize all nouns and verbs.
- Never use periods or exclamation points.
Other Common Rules
- Capitalization of significant parts of speech of or more than four or five letters (preferences vary). These parts of speech (other than nouns and verbs) commonly include: pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Lowercasing of minor parts of speech often including: articles and words shorter than four or five letters (again, preferences vary).
Additional Rules According to The Chicago Manual of Style
- Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions (as, because, although).
- Lowercase of all articles, coordinate conjunctions (and, or, nor), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word.
- Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive.
- Capitalize hyphenated and open compounds. Capitalize the second word attached by a hyphen to prefixes only if they are proper nouns or proper adjectives.
Additional Rules According to the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications
- Capitalize all nouns, verbs (including "is" and other forms of "to be"), adverbs (including "than" and "when"), adjectives (including "this" and "that"), and pronouns (including "its").
- Capitalize prepositions that are part of a verb phrase ("Backing Up Your Disk").
- Lowercase articles (a, an, the) unless it is the first word in the title.
- Lowercase coordinate conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or).
- Lowercase prepositions of four or fewer letters.
- Lowercase "to" in an infinitive phrase ("How to Format Your Hard Disk").
- Capitalize the second word in compound words if it is a noun or proper adjective or the words have equal weight (Cross-Reference, Pre-Microsoft Software, Read/Write Access, Run-Time). Lowercase the second word if it is another part of speech or a participle modifying the first word (How-to, Take-off).
Mignon Fogarty, the creator of Grammar Girl, the founder and managing director of Quick and Dirty Tips, and a Suite101 celebrity writer, follows another commonly used form of title case in which all the words in the title or subtitle are capitalized. This is a convenient form of title case because remembering and referencing rules isn't necessary when every word is capitalized. Read more about her thoughts on title case here.
While the rules vary slightly from one manual or website to the next, always follow any set of guidelines provided to suit the style of writing. If none are provided, follow one of the preceding sets of rules that best suits the type of writing, remembering that as long as you follow the basic rules, people will be able to easily read and understand your titles and subtitles.
Megan B. Wyatt - Megan B. Wyatt has a BA in English, edits fiction manuscripts and currently works as an entertainment reporter in Lafayette, Louisiana.
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