Is the word so capitalized in a title

If you are curious about title capitalization, then you might be wondering is in capitalized in a title. Learn more about the rules of capital letters in the titles of books below!

Whether you are trying to write a blog post, an essay, or an article in English, you need to follow the appropriate rules when it comes to capitalization. Capitalizing the first letter of words in titles and headers is not the same thing as capitalizing words in typical sentences.

While major words are capitalized, minor words are not. So, is “in” capitalized in the title?

In is typically a minor word, so you should not have to capitalize it; however, you may need to capitalize “in” if it is the first word of the title.

What are the rules when it comes to capitalizing words in the title or in the headers of your documents? Learn more about how to properly capitalize words in titles following style guides below.

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Contents

• Major Words Versus Minor Words
• Implementing Title Case Properly In Your Work by Capitalization Rules
• Capitalizing the Word “In”
• When Do You Use Title Case?
• Final Word on Is In Capitalized in a Title?
• FAQs About Is In Capitalized in a Title
• Further Resources
• Author

Major Words Versus Minor Words

First, you need to understand the difference between major words and minor words to capitalize your title correctly. In sentence case, the vast majority of minor words and major words are lowercase unless they are proper nouns. This is different when you are using title case for titles and headers.

In title case, major words are going to be capitalized. This includes pronouns, nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and all words that are four letters or greater. This also includes linking words. If you have a major word, you should capitalize it.

On the other hand, minor words are not capitalized. Minor words usually include short prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions articles, and any words that are three letters or fewer. 

If you follow these rules, you should get your title case correct; however, it is also important to take a look at the details.

Implementing Title Case Properly In Your Work by Capitalization Rules

If you are using title case in a title or header, there are several rules you need to follow. These include:

• The first word and last word of the title or subheadings in your document always has to be capitalized. This is true even if you have a relatively short word, such as “in.” In needs to be capitalized if it is the first word present.
• In addition, you should also capitalize the first word of a subtitle. This includes all of your headers. Title case is the same regardless of whether you are working on the title of your document or one of your headers.
• If you have end punctuation, a colon, or an em dash in a heading, the first word after that punctuation must be capitalized. Common examples of end punctuation include periods, exclamation marks, and question marks.
• If you have a hyphen in your word (a hyphenated compound), you need to capitalize the second part of that word as well as the first word in the phrase.
• If you have a word that is longer than four letters, you need to capitalize it even if it would otherwise fall in the minor word category. For example, even though “from” is a minor word, it needs to be capitalized as “From” in your titles and headers.

If you follow the rules above, you should be able to figure out which words you should capitalize. This includes the word “in.” 

Capitalizing the Word “In”

In the vast majority of cases, this term is not going to be capitalized because it is a minor word. It is a short composition, so it should not be capitalized in headers or title.

On the other hand, if it is the first word in the title or header, that needs to be capitalized. For example, if you have a header that begins with:

• In the Beginning of Time…

Notice that the word “in” is capitalized in this phrase. This phrase follows title case because it is a header.

In addition, “in” would also be uppercase if it was a part of a hyphenated term in a title or header. Make sure you follow title case rules if you are trying to incorporate APA Style (American Psychological Association) or MLA format in a blog post, article, or essay.

When Do You Use Title Case?

In general, you need to use title case if you are writing a title to one of your works or are adding headings to your documents. For example, you might be incorporating H2, H3, or H4 tags in your work for SEO purposes. If that is the case, then you need to incorporate title case to follow AP style. 

You may also want to use title case if you are titling an image or video in your work. If you need to add a title to a table or graph, you may want to use title case as well. You might also find our explainer on is within capitalized in a title helpful.

Final Word on Is In Capitalized in a Title?

Ultimately, “in” is not a word that is frequently capitalized in a title. If you are working on a written assignment, there are certain situations where you may need to follow title case. If you are following title case, you should not capitalize minor words.

“In” is a common minor word, so it should not be capitalized. On the other hand, “in” is capitalized if it is the first word in a title or header.

Furthermore, if it is part of a hyphenated word or if it follows end punctuation, then it needs to be capitalized.

FAQs About Is In Capitalized in a Title

What is the difference between a major word and a minor word in title case? 

In general, words that are four letters or more are major words while words that are three letters or less are minor words. Short prepositions and conjunctions are minor words while nouns, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives are major words.

What qualifies as end punctuation for title case? 

The most common examples of end punctuation include periods, exclamation marks, and questions marks. Grammarly might be able to help you with commas, certain parts of speech, and title case.

Further Resources

Is Into Capitalized in a Title?

Is From Capitalized in a Title?

Is Be Capitalized in a Title?

Is Do Capitalized in a Title?

Is On Capitalized in a Title?

Is Has Capitalized in a Title?

Is That Capitalized in a Title?

Is Our Capitalized in a Title?

Is Not Capitalized in a Title? Answered

Is During Capitalized in a Title? Answered

Is Are Capitalized in a Title?

Is Of Capitalized in a Title? Answered

Is Up Capitalized in a Title?

Is All Capitalized in a Title?

Is Between Capitalized in a Title? Answered

Is My Capitalized in a Title?

Is An Capitalized in a Title?

Is After Capitalized in a Title? Answered

Is Than Capitalized in a Title?

Is It Capitalized in a Title?

Is Within Capitalized in a Title?

Is With Capitalized in a Title?

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Very few people (writers) know which words to or not to capitalize in a title or section headings. Usually, people just write the full title in caps or capitalize words which have three or more letters.

Post on social media and blogs usually get away with such mistakes, after all, who has time to police people on platforms where everyone just wants to have fun?

But as a professional writer or somebody writing academic papers, your knowledge and application of capitalization rules is of the essence. There are a lot of styles that have their title capitalization rules, and I recommend you know one style at the least (one applicable to your writing).

There is no mystery attached to these rules; they are simple and frequently used by most professional writers (you might even have used some of them unknowingly). 

Among the many areas that I have covered, I have introduced the major title capitalization styles to help you understand the basics. So, there’s no need for any crystal balls; no more wandering around the world wide web, searching for the perfect title capitalization formula.

Why Do We Not Capitalize Every Word in A Heading?

There are a couple of reasons—three, actually—why we don’t capitalize each and every word in a title or heading.

Capitalizing every word makes the text less legible and readable. We actually capitalize words to indicate emphasis and provide clarity, so if we capitalize each and every word regardless of their importance or the intended message, we’re flinging this clarity.

You could decide to switch to all caps if you have that liberty. As a matter of fact, a lot of writers have done it this way, but capitalizing each and every word only makes the text have a rough tone and appear obnoxious.

We usually use all-caps to indicate shouting or a bossy tone, so it would be appropriate when that’s the intention. Otherwise, it isn’t a good way to capitalize your titles.

How Do You Know What to Capitalize and What Not to?

If you are just writing your titles without following any rule, then it all boils down to preference—does the word feel that important for you to capitalize or not? Perhaps you just like to write your entire title in capital letters?

But as I have iterated already, there are capitalization rules which people use depending on preference or requirement. Some writers prefer the NY Times style because they’re journos or the APA style because they are writing an academic research paper and are required to use it.

Word processors usually have most of these rules programmed into them and all you have to do is indicate that a particular sentence is a title, the word processor identifies the words that you should and should not capitalize.

Examples of Correct Title Capitalization

To show you how correctly written titles look like—using generally accepted rules—I have listed a couple of examples.

They might be titles for books, poems, news articles, headings of a passage in a book or newspaper, etc.

The Seventh Sea: A Perilous Journey by the World’s Greatest Pirates.

When Curiosity Failed to Kill the Cat.

If you’re the title inside a paragraph or sentence, these are correct ways to write them:

Best of Dana was a famous book by Gina Lewinski.

“The Truth Behind the Helsinki Murders” is the only horror story in her collection.

He loves sitcoms and his favorite is Two and a Half Men.

There are a lot of different correct ways to capitalize, and I couldn’t fit all of them in this post but as long as you are following rules appropriate for the type of text that you’re writing, you’re good.

List of Words Not Capitalized in Titles

Although we have different capitalization styles, there are words which are generally capitalized and others not generally capitalize in titles.

The words in this bracket include:

• Articles (a, an, the)
• Short words (fewer than 4 letters)
• Prepositions (at, by, to, etc.)
• Coordinating Conjunctions (and, but, for)

Here’s the full list:

And, as, as if, as long as, at, but, by, even if, for, from, if, if only, in, into, like, near, now that, nor, of, off, on, on top of, once, onto, or, out of, over, past, so, so that, than, that, till, to, up, upon, with, when, yet.

Why Are Capitalization Rules Important?

For professional writers, reputation is—to a great extent—contingent on producing tidy work which conforms to generally accepted linguistic rules.

There are different styles of title capitalization rules for different genres, agencies, and associations. For example, if you are editing a page on Wikipedia, there are rules you must follow for your page to be legible.

Capitalization rules indicate tidiness, legibility, and professionalism.  Therefore, in many scenarios, they are usually one of the things that stand between you and success as a writer.

Different Styles of Title Capitalization Rules

There are four main title capitalization styles, namely Chicago style, APA style, MLA style, and AP style. I have also added NY times and Wikipedia styles in case one of my readers is a journo or edits Wikipedia pages.

It must also be noted that the title case capitalization or sentence case capitalization rules in each of these capitalization styles fractionally differ.

Here are the title capitalization rules classified by style.

Chicago Manual of Style Capitalization Rules

The Chicago Style is one of the most employed and venerated headline capitalization styles in journalism.

These are the title case rules according to this style:

• Capitalize the first and the last word.
• Capitalize nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions.
• Lowercase articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions.
• Lowercase the ‘to’ in an infinitive (I want to play guitar).

MLA Style Capitalization Rules

The MLA style requires that you capitalize:

• The first word of the title or subtitle.
• All major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns).
• The second part of hyphenated words (e.g., Self-Doubt)
• All words of four letters or more.

APA Style Capitalization Rules

Capitalization of APA style titles follows these rules:

• The first word of the title or subtitle should be capitalized.
• All nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns should be capitalized.
• Both parts of major hyphenated words (e.g., Self-Doubt).
• Words with four letters or more should be capitalized.

AP Style Capitalization Rules

This is a style used by writers for the Associated Press. However, AP style capitalization rules are also employed by many other journalists.

The rules demand that you capitalize words with three or more letters, the first and last words, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions should be lowercase.

Wikipedia Style Capitalization Rules

The following are the title capitalization rules that Wikipedia editors must follow:

• All major words should be capitalized.
• The first and last words should be capitalized.
• Capitalize subordinate conjunctions.
• Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions should be lowercase.
• The word “to” in an infinitive (e.g., I Want to Leave) should be lowercase.

NY Times Style Capitalization Rules

The capitalization for the NY Times style—which is, for the most part, used by writers for the NY Times—requires that you capitalize major words (e.g., nouns, pronouns, verbs), the first and last words, and subordinate conjunctions. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions should be lowercase.

Style Guide Differences and Exceptions Between the Major 3 Styles of Title Capitalization

Although the styles have a lot of similarities, they also have their differences, and it’s crucial to pay attention to these differences.

AP Stylebook

When you use the AP Stylebook, you’re supposed to use lowercase for all words with three letters or fewer in a title. But, if any of those short words happen to be verbs (like “is,” “are,” “was,” “be”), you should capitalize them.

Chicago Style

The Chicago style requires that you use lowercase for all prepositions except when they are the first or last word of the title. The length doesn’t matter in the case of prepositions and you have to use lowercase for words as lengthy as “between,” “throughout,” and other prepositions. 

MLA Style

MLA style has its own exception; words with three letters or fewer should always be in lowercase except when they are the first or last word of the title.

Write Your Titles the Write Way

There’s no need for you to memorize all the different capitalization styles, but you at least need to be aware of the generally accepted rules.

If it’s not compulsory for you to follow a particular style of capitalization, use the general rules provided by an established writer in your genre and make sure that you are consistent with your chosen style.

With consistency, everything becomes easier.

Very few people know which words should be capitalized in a title. In fact, the majority of people adopt rules from others who don’t know either. This usually takes on one of two forms: capitalizing every word, or capitalizing words containing three or more letters.

Where blog posts and internal work communications are concerned you can usually get away with such sins, largely because those in the know tend not to point out the error of your ways. But wouldn’t you rather know the truth? Wouldn’t you rather be an ambassador of proper titling rather than a capitalization criminal? Well, today is your chance to repent for improper form, and learn which words should be capitalized in titles, once and for all!

What to Capitalize in a Title

The cool thing about learning what should and shouldn’t be capitalized is that each category contains three core rules.

Rule 1:

Always capitalize the first and last word of a title, no matter what the word is.

Rule 2:

Always capitalize the following five word categories:

1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Verbs
4. Adjectives
5. Adverbs

We don’t have the time to list every noun, pronoun, verb, adjective and adverb here, but as long as you remember this list, you can Google the word you’re struggling with to find out whether or not it falls into one of the five categories listed above.

Rule 3:

Always capitalize words of five or more letters, regardless of whether the word falls into one of the aforementioned five categories. This rule will help you avoid making errors when using conjunctions and prepositions in your titles. You see, many moons ago, writers did NOT capitalize any conjunctions or prepositions. However, today’s standard practice is to capitalize conjunctions and prepositions of five or more letters.

Here are some examples:

Prepositions (five or more letters):

Within, About, Among, Between.

Conjunctions/subordinating conjunctions (five or more letters):

While, Where, Until, Because, Although.

What Not to Capitalize in Titles

Rule 1:

1) Never capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or fewer letters. However, remember the above rule: words with five or more letters, regardless of whether the word is a conjunction or preposition, must be capitalized.

Here are some examples:

Examples of prepositions not to be capitalized (four or fewer letters):

at / by / down / for / from / in / into / like / near / of / off / on / onto / over / past / to / upon / with

Examples of conjunctions not to be capitalized (four or fewer letters):

and / as / but / for / if / nor / once / or / so / than / that / till / when / yet

Rule 2:

Never capitalize the particle “to”, even when used as an infinitive (meaning with a verb). For example: to See, to Read, to Write, etc.

Rule 3:

Never capitalize articles: a, an, the.

Still a Little Confused?

No worries. Below we have created two lists of common words people struggle with when capitalizing titles. Bookmark this page and refer back to the lists when you’re in doubt.

DO Capitalize in a Title

About / Above / Across / After / Against / Along / Although / Among / Around / Because / Before / Behind / Below / Beneath / Beside / Between / During / Except / Inside / Outside / Since / Through / Toward / Under / Underneath / Unless / Until / Whenever / Where / Whereas / Wherever / While / Within / Without

DON’T Capitalize in a Title

and / as / as if / as long as / at / but / by / even if / for / from / if / if only / in / into / like / near / now that / nor / of / off / on / on top of / once / onto / or / out of / over / past / so / so that / than / that / till / to / up / upon / with / when / yet

Tricky Word Groupings

Even when armed with these core rules, people end up making silly mistakes by allowing doubt to make them second-guess their titling. In light of this, here’s a short list of tricky word groupings that often trip people up:

• as Though
• even Though
• in Front of
• in Order that
• Instead of
• Rather than

Start Practicing Today

It’s a lot to take in, we know, and so you’ll need to practice writing a few titles before things begin to click into place. Another great way to learn is to spot mistakes in other people’s work. You’ll be surprised just how many journalists, authors and bloggers (in particular) get titles in a muddle. Bear in mind, though, occasionally a writer will break the rules to suit their preference or to appropriate a concept. For example, a book entitled “Think Like a Genius” might well be adjusted to “Think Like A Genius”, for no other reason than the publishing house or author thinks it looks better on the cover.

That’s it! No more excuses. Start correcting titles today and help make the world a capitalization-friendly place.

This is taken from a site concerned with Album titles, but can easily be applied to other titles as well.

How should I capitalize album titles and band names?

Please use the following standard guidelines for capitalizing artist names, record labels, album and song titles in the English language. Other rules may apply to other languages.

All titles should be in standard mixed case, where the first letter of each word is capitalized and followed by lower case letters, as noted below:

1. Capitalize all nouns, verbs (including be, been, am, are, is, was, and were), adverbs, subordinating conjunctions (including if and as when it is not used as a preposition), adjectives (including so when used as an adjective), and pronouns (including he, she, we, and it). Examples:

   • Love Is in the Air
   • I Am the Walrus
   • That Was Then, This Is Now
   • You Are So Beautiful
   • This Is As Good As It Gets

2. Do not capitalize:

   a. Articles: a, an, the (unless part of an artist’s name)

   • The Man Who Sold the World
   • In a Safe Place
   • The Best of The Temptations

   b. Coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, nor, for, yet, and so

   • Rattle and Hum
   • It’s Now or Never

   • Nothin’ but a Good Time

     Special Notes: The word «but» can function as either a conjunction, preposition, or an adverb. Most of the time, it functions as a conjunction or a preposition and should be lowercase. Much less frequently, it will function as an adverb, and should be capitalized. In that case, the word «but» will immediately follow a verb (without a comma), and can be replaced by other adverbs like «only» or «just» (without changing anything else or adding punctuation) and will convey the same message:

     • Life Is But a Dream
     • Ain’t But a Few of Us Left
     • You Are But a Draft, a Long Rehearsal for a Show That Will Never Play

     If the word «but» is better replaced by the word «except», or if it is used in a phrase that contradicts the first half of the sentence, it is not an adverb and should be lowercase.

     • I Know You Are but What Am I
     • I Don’t Know What It Is but I Like It

   c. Short prepositions: as, at, by, for, in, of, on, to, from

   • Live at Woodstock
   • Face to Face
   • Death Cab for Cutie
   • Pretty in Pink

   • Come in from the Cold

     Special Note: The word «versus» (and its abbreviated form «vs.» or «v.») is commonly left in lower case, despite its being a preposition of more than three characters.

     • Spy vs. Spy
     • Birds v. Worms

     Special Note: The word «etcetera» (and its abbreviated form «etc.») is also commonly left in lower case when used to represent the phrase «and so on» or «and so forth».

     • Time After Time etc.

   d. When used to form an infinitive: to

   • Nowhere to Run
   • How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
   • Song I Love to Sing
   • Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine

3. If a title is broken up by major punctuation (colon, question mark, exclamation mark, em-dash, parentheses, or quotes), treat each distinct piece of the title as a whole, and always capitalize the first and last words of each division.

   • Otis! The Definitive Otis Redding
   • In Time: The Best of R.E.M.
   • I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band)

4. In compounds formed by hyphens, capitalize each part except where the part would not be capitalized if it were a separate word.

   • The Go-Gos
   • At the Drive-In
   • The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes

5. Only use all caps for acronyms or abbreviations where common use is all caps.

   • R.E.M.
   • N.W.A.
   • R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.

6. Capitalize contractions and slang consistent with the rules above to the extent that such clearly apply. For example, do not capitalize o’ for «of», or n’ for «and», etc.

   • Rock ‘n’ Roll
   • Will o’ the Wisp
   • Sweet Child o’ Mine

7. Proper nouns should always be capitalized appropriately. This includes parts of band names separated by the word ‘and’ (for example) where the two parts could stand alone, grammatically.

   • Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
   • Elvis Costello and The Attractions
   • Huey Lewis and The News

8. Always capitalize the first and last word of a title, even if it would otherwise be lowercase. Examples:

   • Bring it On
   • One Is For
   • And You and I
   • The Greatest Hits Of

[edit] Exceptions

In the case where an artist uses a nonstandard capitalization with an artistic intent, the original capitalization used by the artist should be preserved. Examples include k.d. lang (artist), Yellow mY skYcaptain (release), and «tourette’s» — track 11 on the release In Utero.

Note that there are cases in which the name of an artist or album — or an entire tracklisting — is written entirely in uppercase or lowercase in the art which accompanies a release. These instances do not qualify as an exception, because they do not represent artistic intent regarding capitalization (in most cases, they are written in this manner for aesthetic purposes related to the cover art).

Like many aspects of the English language, title capitalization rules can seem confusing and unintuitive. While the words that are (and are not) capitalized in a title aren’t always consistent, it’s really not as complicated as you might think.

Whether you’re titling a book, writing a headline for a blog post or article, or referring to a movie, song, or other published work, you’ll need to follow standard title capitalization rules. To help you along, let’s break down the basic rules and explain some exceptions. 

These are the three title capitalization rules you’ll need to remember:

1. Capitalize the first and last words of a title
2. Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
3. Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

1. Capitalize the first and last words of a title

The simplest rule you can follow with complete certainty is this: the first and last words of a title are always capitalized. It doesn’t matter what length the title is or what grammatical role the word plays. From the humble article “the” to longer nouns like “tyrannosaurus,” you’re 100% safe capitalizing the first and last word.

Example: Andy Williams’s 1966 hit single, “Music to Watch Girls By”

All style guides agree on this rule, and it’s because it just makes sense. By capitalizing the first and last words, you create a visual mark that shows the reader where the title begins and ends. Even if it’s used within a longer sentence, it can’t be confused with the text surrounding it.

💡 Note: When words are capitalized to form a title, their format is called “title case” or “headline case.” This is in contrast to “sentence case,” which is what you’ll see in this very paragraph.

Capitalize the first word of subtitles, too

The rule for subtitles is very simple: the subtitle’s first word is also always capitalized, no exceptions. Subtitles, written after a colon, are especially common in nonfiction books and academic works. 

Example: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s classic work of feminist literary criticism,  “The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.” 

If this title was written in sentence case, the first word after the colon would not normally be capitalized. And if we were following rule number 3 (spoiler alert), the word “the” would be in lowercase.

If you’re worried about your institution’s style guide of choice, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Capitalizing the first word of a subtitle is one of those rules where APA, MLA, Chicago, and AP style guides are in beautiful, unanimous agreement.

This is not the only rule they agree on — the next one is also universal.

2. Capitalize verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs

There are many common parts of speech that are always capitalized in a title. Let’s take a quick look at them, one by one.

Verbs

The ‘action words’ of language, verbs are capitalized in every style guide. This also applies to phrasal verbs, where a verb and a preposition are used together, like “Get Up,” “Stand Up,” “Let Go,” and “Carry Out.”

A commonly asked question is whether the word “is” needs to be capitalized. “Is” and its cousins (“I am,” “you are,” etc.) are all conjugated forms of the verb “to be,” so the answer is yes. The same applies to the verb “do” and its variations “did” and “does.”

Here are a few examples of book titles that include verbs:

• “This Is How You Lose the Time War” by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple
• “Don’t Cry for Me” by Daniel Black
• “I’ll Tell You in Person” by Chloe Caldwell
• “Do You Want to Start a Scandal” by Tessa Dare
•  “History Is All You Left Me” by Adam Silvera

Pronouns

All style guides agree on capitalizing pronouns in titles. If you’re a native speaker, it’s possible you assume the term simply refers to “he,” “she,” “they,” and “his,” “hers,” and “theirs.” These are pronouns indeed, but there are many more types.

Subject pronouns	Object pronouns	Possessive pronouns	Reflexive pronouns
I	Me	Mine	Myself
You	You	Yours	Yourself
She/he/it	Her/him/it	Hers/his/not used	Herself/himself/itself
We	Us	Ours	Ourselves
You	You	Yours	Yourselves
They	Them	Theirs	Themselves

We won’t dwell (no one likes a grammar lesson), but to learn more about further types of pronouns, like relative, indefinite, demonstrative, or interrogative pronouns, you can check out Thesaurus.com’s entry on pronoun types. Fun fact: words like “someone,” “whenever,” “whose,” and “whom” are pronouns, too. Hopefully, this knowledge will come in handy when you next capitalize a tricky title.

Here are a few examples of book titles with pronouns:

• “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor
• “Guess How Much I Love You” by Sam McBratney
• “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway
• “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston 
• “Go Tell It on the Mountain” by James Baldwin 
• “Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good” by Jan Karon

If you do happen to like grammar lessons, however, check out this article about the Oxford comma to learn more about when and how to use it like a pro.

Nouns and adjectives

You already know these ones, so we won’t patronize you. They’re also straightforward when it comes to capitalization: nouns and adjectives are capitalized in all style guides. Wonderful, right?

Let’s look at a few title examples that feature nouns:

• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
• “How the García Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez
• “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” by Italo Calvino
• “Diary of a Young Naturalist” by Dara McAnulty

And some book titles that capitalize adjectives:

• “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote
• “A Cavern of Black Ice” by J. V. Jones
• “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” by Scott McCloud
• “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon

Adverbs 

You may know adverbs as the words that end in -ly. They describe the way or manner in which something is done or happens. Just don’t forget that adverbs of manner aren’t the only type of adverb. 

If your title includes any of the words below, you’re dealing with adverbs of frequency, time, place, or degree:

Adverbs of time	Adverbs of frequency	Adverbs of place	Adverbs of degree
Today Tomorrow Tonight Yesterday Last Year Now Earlier Later Lately Recently Soon	Often Usually Frequently Generally Always Never Hardly ever Seldom Sometimes Rarely Occasionally	Here There Everywhere Anywhere Nowhere Elsewhere Somewhere Above Inside Out Outside	Hardly Almost Enough Just Nearly Quite Little So Very Too Rather

You don’t need to remember what category each adverb falls under — you just need to be able to recognize them as an adverb, since all adverbs are capitalized across all style guides.

Here are a few titles that feature adverbs, whether they end in -ly or not:

• “Isla and the Happily Ever After” by Stephanie Perkins
• “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” by Iris Murdoch
• “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin
• “A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York” by Anjelica Huston

So far, we’ve looked at the two major rules where all style guides agree: capitalizing the first and final words of a title, as well as any “principal” or important words, like nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The next rule is where it gets a little bit more complicated.

3. Don’t capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, or prepositions

Unless you’re working with a style guide that says otherwise (or if they’re the first or final word in a title), the following types of words are not capitalized:

• Articles — the tiny words that come before nouns to indicate whether it’s a general concept or a particular, specific thing, e.g., “the garden” vs. “a garden”
• Prepositions — words that precede nouns to show direction or place, or to establish a relationship between two things, e.g., “opposite the library,” “next to the cat” 
• Coordinating conjunctions — words that link two parts of a sentence that can stand on their own, e.g., “I was tired. Alice went to bed” vs. “I was tired and Alice went to bed.”

Here are the words that fall under these categories:

Articles	Coordinating conjunctions	Prespositions (list not exhaustive)
a, an, the	for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so	above, across, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, by, down, from, in, into, near, of, off, on, to, toward, under, upon, with, within, etc.

📚For more examples and information on prepositions, head to this page by the University of Ottawa.

Here are a few book titles that do not capitalize articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions (unless they are the first or last words of the title):

• “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust
• “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James
• “Again, but Better” by Christine Riccio

Subordinating conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions, on the other hand, are capitalized. These are words that introduce a new part to the sentence that is dependent on the main sentence, or clause. Subordinating conjunctions include: if, since, as, when, although, while, after, before, until, because.

Because titles are not typically multi-clause sentences, it’s harder to intuit which group a conjunction belongs to. The simplest way to know when to capitalize conjunctions is to just remember which are coordinating and which subordinating. 

Subordinating conjunctions do get capitalized, as in these title examples:

• “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke” by Eric LaRocca
• “As Good As Dead” by Holly Jackson
• “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions” by Randall Munroe
• “Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer Is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings” by Dave Barry

4. When in doubt, refer to your style guide

If you’re writing for a specific institution, keep their style guide bookmarked. For your convenience, here’s what the four most commonly used style guides in North America require when it comes to capitalizing titles correctly:

Chicago Manual of Style

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Subordinating conjunctions

Don’t capitalize:

• Articles, prepositions of any length, and coordinating conjunctions
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure to Launch”)

Modern Languages Association (MLA) Handbook

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Subordinating conjunctions

Don’t capitalize:

• Articles, prepositions of any length, and coordinating conjunctions
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure to Launch”)

American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Words that consist of more than four letters, even conjunctions and prepositions

Don’t capitalize:

• Words shorter than four letters
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure to Launch”)

The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook

Capitalize:

• The first and last words of a title
• Verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Words that consist of more than four letters, even conjunctions and prepositions
• “To,” if used in an infinitive (e.g., “Failure To Launch”)

Don’t capitalize:

• Articles and prepositions shorter than four letters
• Coordinating conjunctions

You’ll notice that the first two, Chicago and MLA, are the same — whereas AP and APA share an enthusiasm for capitalizing words longer than four letters.

Now compare these book titles:

AP and APA	Chicago and MLA
“All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living” by Morgan Harper Nichols	“All along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living” by Morgan Harper Nichols

See the difference? 

• Chicago and MLA don’t capitalize “along” because it’s a preposition. 
• AP and APA do capitalize it because it’s longer than four letters long. 
• “For” is a coordinating conjunction (so lowercase for Chicago and MLA) and not long enough to be capitalized in AP and APA.
• All four style guides capitalize the first and last words of the title, as well as the first word of the subtitle.

🎯 Want to test yourself? Head over to our book title generator and give it a whirl. Write down what titles you’re given and then ask yourself how they’d be formatted for each style guide. 

Those are all the rules, so you can go ahead and capitalize your title. Beyond your title, if you’ve got a whole manuscript in need of polishing, consider hiring a copy editor to take care of the finer details.

If you want to expand your knowledge of niche linguistic matters even further, head over to the world of punctuation with our post on using hyphens and dashes correctly. Just don’t forget your linguist geek hat.