![]() ![]() Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.Check out the following movie titles featuring colons: Titles, in particular, often feature colons that introduce subtitles. The English language-and its titles-are rarely simple. Capitalize the first word following a colon Because of that, they should all be in title case. In the title Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, “Tell,” “Mom,” “Babysitter,” and “Dead” are all major words-they’re verbs ( tell), nouns ( mom, babysitter), and adjectives ( dead describes the babysitter), and they all very much impact the sentence’s meaning. ![]() Major words are also those that are four letters long or longer, according to most major style guides. Capitalize words that have four letters or more So in a movie title like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you’d capitalize the adjectives and nouns. Most major style guides also recommend capitalizing subordinating conjunctions, which can include words like because or if. A “major word” is a noun, pronoun, adverb, adjective, or verb-basically, any word whose meaning impacts the sentence. How do we define a “major word”? Good question. For the most part, major words are capitalized while minor words are not. The rules for title capitalization divide words as major and minor. Capitalize nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions As for the last word, Chicago and AP Style recommend always capitalizing it while MLA and APA style do not unless it fits into another rule that says you should. So, in the title The Perks of Being a Wallflower, make sure to capitalize The-it’s the very first word, and its capitalization tips off the reader that, hey, the title’s officially starting. Capitalize the first and sometimes the last word Take advantage on this moment to review the general rules for capitalizing as well. However, there are some rules these style guides do agree on. Each of the common style guides (APA, AP, Chicago, and MLA) has its own approach toward capitalization. In sentence case, the only thing that should be capitalized is the sentence’s first word and any proper nouns.įor a lot of writers, title capitalization becomes a tricky issue when a piece of writing has to follow a certain style guide. “Titles” may also include the titles of scientific papers, the titles of academic tests, and possibly the headings in essays or slideshows.Īnything that doesn’t fall into one of those categories should be in sentence case-and if the name didn’t tip you off, that’s the opposite of title case. The first thing we want to know is what exactly counts as a “title.” According to most major style guides, “titles” includes the proper names of creative works like movies, books, songs, magazines, video games, podcasts, and articles. That way, you can apply the movie titles’ rules to songs, academic papers, and even PowerPoint headings to determine when to use title case. Have no fear: we’ll walk you through the steps, one at a time, using movie titles (some ridiculous, some not) as examples. ![]() But, titles can also stump readers and writers across the board due to title case-conventions of which words in a sentence start with capital letters. Titles can be confusing-either due to length (we’re looking at you, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet), punctuation ( Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood), or content (sigh, 2002’s Mr.
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