Formatting Titles: Italics, Underlining & Quotes: Fifth Grade English Student Guide

Titles of creative works require distinct typographic formatting depending on whether the work is a complete, standalone publication or a smaller piece contained within a larger collection.

The Big Work Versus Small Work Rule

The general rule for formatting titles in English is simple: Large, standalone works are italicized (or underlined when handwritten), while smaller works that appear inside larger collections are placed in quotation marks.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
|               THE TITLE FORMATTING SPECTRUM                  |
+------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| ITALICS OR UNDERLINING       | QUOTATION MARKS               |
| (Big, Standalone Works)      | (Small Parts / Short Works)   |
+------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Books: Island of the Blue    | Short Stories: "The Treasure  |
| Dolphins                     | of Lemon Brown"               |
| Movies: The Lion King        | Poems: "The Road Not Taken"   |
| Newspapers: The Washington   | Articles: "Journey to Mars"   |
| Post                         |                               |
| Magazines: National          | Songs: "The Star-Spangled     |
| Geographic                   | Banner"                       |
| Plays: A Midsummer Night's   | TV Episodes: "The Trouble     |
| Dream                        | with Tribbles"                |
+------------------------------+-------------------------------+

Handwritten Versus Typed Work

When typing on a computer, use italics for major works: Hatchet. When writing by hand in a notebook or on paper, you cannot easily italicize your handwriting; therefore, you underline the title: Hatchet. Underlining is the universal handwritten symbol for italics.

Rules for Capitalizing Words in Titles

When writing any title, follow title capitalization conventions: Always capitalize the first word and the last word of the title, regardless of what part of speech they are. Capitalize all major words: nouns, pronouns, verbs (including short verbs like is and are), adjectives, and adverbs.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
|                WHAT TO LOWERCASE IN TITLES                   |
|                                                              |
| Keep lowercase ONLY if they are NOT the first or last word:  |
| 1. Articles: a, an, the                                      |
| 2. Short Prepositions (fewer than 5 letters): in, on, at,    |
|    to, for, by, with, from, of                               |
| 3. Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet|
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

Capitalization in Action

Consider the title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Notice that the first "The" is capitalized because it begins the title. The second "the" and the conjunction "and" are lowercase because they are short grammatical words in the interior of the title.

Exercises and Solutions

Exercise 1: Formatting Diverse Titles. Apply the correct title formatting (italics or quotation marks) to each of the following works: Work A: The Secret Garden (a classic novel). Work B: The Raven (a famous narrative poem). Work C: Smithsonian Magazine (a monthly print magazine). Work D: How Honeybees Communicate (an informative magazine article).

Solution 1: Work A is a standalone novel, so it is italicized: The Secret Garden. Work B is a poem, which is a shorter work placed in quotation marks: "The Raven." Work C is a complete magazine publication, so it is italicized: Smithsonian Magazine. Work D is an individual article published inside a magazine, so it is placed in quotation marks: "How Honeybees Communicate."

Exercise 2: Correcting Title Capitalization. Correct the capitalization of this book title: where the mountain meets the Moon.

Solution 2: Following title capitalization rules, capitalize the first word, last word, and all major nouns and verbs: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Notice that "the" remains lowercase because it is an interior article.