How to Punctuate Titles in Essays

Punctuating titles in essays is sometimes a challenging task. There are various rules to follow and are based on what type of title you want to punctuate. Generally, all titles must be capitalized in a written work; however, the punctuation varies between quotation marks around the title or italicizing the title in the text. You will have to distinguish between the types of titles to be able to determine which punctuation is appropriate. The Modern Language Association offers various tips and techniques, along with guides, to help students and other writers handle titles in their essays.

Instructions

    • 1

      Capitalize the first and last word of a title, along with every verb, noun, adjective and adverb in the title. Do not capitalize prepositions such as "in" or articles, such as "the" or "a," unless they are the first or last word of a title. A general rule of thumb is to capitalize words that are more than three letters long.

    • 2

      Put titles of short works such as short poems, stories, songs and commercials in quotation marks when writing in an essay.

    • 3

      Add quotation marks to the titles of an essay, a skit, chapters in a book and single specific episodes of a television series. Do not add quotation marks to the title of your essay at the top of the first page.

    • 4

      Italicize the names of long works, such as titles of a book-length poem, a novel or a collection or anthology of essays. Italicize the titles of CDs, albums and cassettes, but not the names of the artists.

    • 5

      Capitalize the names of religious works such as the Quran or the Bible.

    • 6

      Format the titles of plays, ballets, operas, films and television series by italicizing them. Also italicize titles of visual artwork such as paintings and drawings.

    • 7

      Add quotation marks to the titles of specific articles in magazines and newspapers, but italicize the name of the newspaper or magazine.

    • 8

      Italicize the name of a book, an encyclopedia or a pamphlet.

Learnify Hub © www.0685.com All Rights Reserved