How to Capitalize Titles (4 Common Styles)

As a proofreader, you need to know how to capitalize titles correctly. However, this process is not always straightforward because the rules about capitalizing titles can vary between different style guides.

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to capitalize titles by focusing on the four common styles of title capitalization:

• Title case, which capitalizes the first letter of certain words
• Sentence case, in which you capitalize titles as though they’re sentences
• Initial case, where you capitalize the first letter of every word
• All caps, where you capitalize the entire title

After that, we’ll also look at the rules that APA, Chicago, MLA, and AP style, respectively, recommend.

What Is Title Case?

In title case (or headline style), you’ll need to capitalize the first letter of the following:

• The first word in the title or subtitle(s)
• Nouns, noun phrases, and pronouns
• Verbs and all words in verb phrases
• Adverbs and adjectives

You can see an example of this style below:

Note that the length of a word does not matter here: Even though it’s only two letters long, we capitalize Is because it’s a verb, but we don’t capitalize the prepositions at and in or the conjunction the. Whether to capitalize a word simply depends on the word type.

What Is Sentence Case?

Sentence case (or sentence style) treats titles like sentences. This means you should only capitalize the following:

• The first word in a title or subtitle
• All the letters in an acronym or initialism
• The first letter in proper nouns

In other words, you capitalize a word if you would usually capitalize it in a sentence.

If we return to our example title from above, we would write it like this:

Here, the only capitalized words are A, Why (the first words in the title and subtitle, respectively), FBI (a proper noun and an initialism), and America (a proper noun).

What Is Initial Case?

In initial case, you capitalize the first letter of every word in titles and subtitles. For instance:

This is fairly rare, but some people prefer it for its simplicity.

What Is All Caps?

One more way of writing titles is to capitalize everything. We call this all caps:

Some people also mix all caps with another style, using small caps for lowercase letters:

These styles are very striking, so they’re especially common in marketing copy. However, you will also find them in certain titles of books, journal articles, and elsewhere.

Style Guide Rules on Title Capitalization

Most style guides and sheets will advise on how to capitalize headings, so make sure to check whether your client is using one. Most guides will also stick with one of the styles we’ve outlined above, but you’ll find some variations among them.

Let’s review some well-known examples.

How to Capitalize a Title in APA Style

APA uses both title case (for titles in the main body of a document) and sentence case (for titles in reference lists). In addition, when using title case, APA capitalizes all words of four or more letters, including conjunctions and prepositions.

Title case: Murder Most Horrid: A Study of Crime Rates in America
Sentence case: Crime prevention: A methodological approach for police officers

How to Capitalize a Title in Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends capitalizing the first letter of the first word and also of the last word, regardless of its type. As with other styles, Chicago also capitalizes all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. It also suggests capitalizing all conjunctions of four or more letters (so only excluding and, but, for, or, and nor):

An In-Depth Study of Utensils and Their Efficacy When Eating Pizza

How to Capitalize a Title in MLA Style

MLA style uses a title case system, but it also recommends capitalizing any word of four or more letters, including conjunctions and prepositions:

Ears in the Water: Can Dolphins Understand Us?

How to Capitalize a Title in AP Style

The AP Stylebook suggests using title case for headings and subheadings and requires capitalization of all words of four or more letters:

Send Me an Angel: Examining the Music of Blind Willie McTell

Becoming a Proofreader or Editor

If you’re interested in learning more about writing titles properly and exploring the various capitalization styles, consider checking out our Becoming A Proofreader and Becoming An Editor courses.

These courses offer a variety of learning modules that will teach you even more than capitalization. They cover everything you need to know about academic proofreading and editing.

If you’re interested, check our free trial today.

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Formatting Titles in Academic Documents How and When to Use Sic in a Quotation Editing Tips: How to Format Block Quotes A Guide to Proofreading LaTeX Documents