Headings, chapter titles, book titles, movie titles……these titles all require proper capitalization. Which words are capitalized in a title, anyway? Or, which words are not?
Here are some rules to help you:
1. The first and last words of a title are always capitalized, no matter what they are.
2. The articles a, and, and the are not capitalized unless they are the first or last words of a title.
3. The conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so are not capitalized unless they are the first or last words of a title. However, sometimes for, yet, and so can be other parts of speech. For can also be a preposition, but you don’t have to worry about that because little prepositions are not capitalized either! However, yet and so can also be adverbs, and adverbs are capitalized in a title. Here are some examples of yet and so:
I am so tired. (So is an adverb.)
I am tired, so I will take a nap. (So is a conjunction here; it is connecting two clauses.)
Are we there yet? (Yet is an adverb here.)
I am tired, yet I can’t sleep. (Yet is a conjunction here, a connecting word.)
You probably won’t have to worry about yet and so too much in titles. My guess is usually they will be adverbs in a title, unless your title is really long. So capitalize them.
4. Small prepositions of four or fewer letters (with four letters you have a choice of whether or not to capitalize) are not capitalized.
Common short prepositions: to, for, by, in, out, up, down, at, with, past, over.
Common longer prepositions (capitalize these): above, below, beyond, between, among, along, beneath, under.
NOTE: Although in is a preposition, if and it and is are NOT! These words need to be capitalized! If is a conjunction, it is a pronoun, and is is a verb.
Here are some titles that are capitalized correctly:
Tender Is the Night
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
Joy to the World
Somewhere over the Rainbow (or Over)
Woe Is I
The Best Little Grammar Book Ever!
Correct Me If I’m Wrong
Algebra Is Tough, yet Fun!
I that last title, yet is used as a conjunction, or connecting word, so it isn’t capitalized. It looks kind of funny to me. If all words except one in a longish title are capitalized, and it looks odd to you, you can capitalize all the words. In a title, ’tis better to capitalize a word when in doubt, than not capitalize one that should be capitalized.
Special Note: Is, Are, Was, Were, Be: These words are all verbs and thus very important and always capitalized in a title. If you don’t capitalize these, the grammar police will be out looking for you!
——————————————————
Need a graduation gift? Grammar books make great graduation gifts! Check out my books on Amazon!
Coming in fall 2013: The Best Grammar Workbook Ever!
Thanks for finally talking about >bigwords101 —
Which Words Do I Capitalize in a Title? <Liked it!
I needed to thank you for this fantastic read!! I definitely loved every little bit of it.
I’ve got you book marked to look at new stuff you post…
Thanks! I can just add you to my list. I send out blog posts about once a week. Not too much e-mail to clutter your box!
Darling graphics and good information, Arlene!
Thanks; Jeannie!
Arlene
What about URLs in titles? URLs, by convention, are lower case. Suppose I wrote an article called “My Mis-adventures with google.com”?
And how about the letter following the hyphen in a hyphenated word? Should my article be “My Mis-Adventures with Google.com”?
BTW, two days ago in wsj.com was an article on the banning of apostrophes that denote possessives. Government naming policy bans apostrophes in names of places, e.g., “Smiths Ferry.” Surely you have something to say about this!
I believe misadventures is one word, so you could avoid the issue. However, in a hyphenated word, I believe the second word is lowercase, although that has always looked peculiar to me.
URLs are lowercase as far as I know.
The banning of grammatical things is the attempt to get rid of things people don’t understand and cannot use correctly!
Thanks, Arlene. I’m going to glue this information to my forehead. Is, it and if. I should think of a little jingle for them, and the verbs too, I have trouble with them. But now I know!
Most of the time it is the verb Is that people don’t realize they need to capitalize. It is a verb and thus not an unimportant word, although it is little!
Note that “if” is not capitalized in a title simply because it’s a conjunction, as most would not be. It’s only because “if” is a subordinating conjunction that it warrants capitalization.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for sharing this Arlene, it all makes perfect sense. However, I get confused with titles of articles i.e in newspapers as they don’t seem to capitalize, though I could swear they used to.
I guess I just need a definition of what a title is…
🙂
Newspapers used to capitalize headlines! They seem to be all over the place, using all caps, initial caps, and no caps except the first word. However, when they use the initial caps, they should be capitalizing according to the rules. I am sure you already know what a title is….just capitalize yours correctly….the newspapers have special style conventions they are using.