title of a presentation in quotes or italics

Quotation Marks or Italics In Titles?

| Candace Osmond

| Punctuation

Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

You’ve probably asked yourself while writing an essay: Should I italicize a play title or enclose it in quotation marks? What about a song title?

Don’t feel guilty for not knowing the rules for quotation marks or italics in titles . Even the most experienced writers have the same problem.

I’ll show you the basic rules for choosing between quotation marks and italics in titles. This guide features the guidelines of Chicago, MLA, and APA.

Using Italics or Quotation Marks in Titles

Using italics vs. quotation marks in titles depends on your style guide. But the general rule is to italicize long titles, such as titles of books, movie titles, or album titles.

Meanwhile, you must write titles in quotation marks for shorter pieces like musical titles, magazines, TV series, and articles. Note that the AP style does not put magazines, newspaper style, or journals in quotation marks.

• “How You Feel About Gender Roles Will Tell Us How You’ll Vote” is an article worth the read.
• My favorite song is “If I could Fly.”
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation is for readers who want to escape their stressful lives.

Works That Require Italics

Use Italics for titles such as the following:

• Pieces with sections, such as a collection or anthology.
• Some scientific names.
• Computers and video games.
• Titles of newspapers and titles of articles from newspapers.
• Play titles.
• Works of art.
• Court cases.
• Television and radio shows.
• Episode titles.
• Book titles.
• Magazine articles.
• Album titles.
• Names of Ships.
• Operas, musical titles, and other musical works.

Here are some examples of italicized works:

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
• Michelangelo’s David.
• When Harry Met Sally.
• Do you have a copy of Wag the Dog by award-winning author Larry Beinhart?
• My favorite mystery book is In the Woods by the bestselling author Tana French .

The source’s title is usually italicized in a bibliography or reference list entries. But it can also depend on the source type. If you’re citing a journal article, every citation style italicizes the journal title instead of the article.

• Asher, J. (2017). Thirteen reasons why . Penguin Books.
• (2011). When Harry met Sally . Santa Monica, Calif: MGM Studio distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Works That Require Quotation Marks

Use double quotes for the following types of work.

• Comic strips.
• Article title.
• Generic titles.
• Short works like essays
• Short story titles.
• Song titles.

Remember that quotation marks come in pairs, so add both opening and closing quotation marks. Here are some examples where we use friendly quotation marks in titles:

• “Cul de Sac” is a darkly humorous comic.
• “Cinderella” is my favorite chapter title from the Big Blue Book .

Big Things vs. Little Things

“Big things” include a collection of novels or book series, movies, cartoon series, and other works that can stand independently. We can also consider them as complete bodies of work.

Meanwhile, the “little things” depend on other groups, so we put them in quotes.

Think of a “single” in an album title or a “book chapter” in a book title. Another good example includes “manuscripts” in collections.

Remember that this isn’t a perfect rule. But it helps writers determine whether they should quote or italicize the title of a work.

Italics vs. Quotation Marks in Style Guides

The grammar rules on italicizing or quoting titles are usually a matter of style. Take a look at the title formats’ differences among style guides.

In the Modern Language Association style guide, a quick rule is to italicize titles that are longer. Experienced writers state that these “longer works” include books, journals, court cases, etc. Ship names and other notable names are also in italics.

But for shorter works like articles and poems, MLA Style Guide recommends you format titles with double quotation marks.

Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style goes by the same basic rules as MLA. Titles of major works, such as books, and special names like a ship should be in italics. But place the item in quotation marks for subsections of larger bodies like journal articles, blogs, and book chapters.

According to the APA Style 7th edition , you should use italics for titles like journals, magazines, and newspapers. Books, artworks, webpages, and any other larger body of work also use italics.

However, writers who follow APA use the regular type of format for shorter works. These include essays or works in journal articles and lectures.

When to Not Use Italics or Quotation Marks

There’s a specific type of title that all major style guides have no recommendations for. The following do not use italics or quotation marks for titles:

• Commercial products.
• Political documents.
• Legal documents.
• Major religious books or scriptures.
• Name of artifacts.
• Names of buildings.
• Constitutional documents.
• Traditional game.

If you are formatting titles on a website, there’s no need to follow the rules on italics vs. quotation marks. You can go with any more visually appealing style since online web pages are less formal than print materials.

Prioritize the font type, size, and headings when formatting websites and web pages. Make decisions based on what will attract visitors.

When to Underline Instead of Quote or Italicize

If you write using pen and paper, italicizing works can be challenging. Many style manuals recommend underlining the source instead. It’s easier, more practical, and keeps your handwriting legible.

Final Word on Italics vs. Quotes in Titles

An easy way to remember is that most types of titles are almost always in italics. APA, MLA, and Chicago manuals of style recommend italics for longer works.

I hope this guide on using quotation marks and italics in titles helps you become a better writer. 

Grammarist is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. When you buy via the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.

2024 © Grammarist, a Found First Marketing company. All rights reserved.

• Admissions Essays
• Books and Manuscripts
• Business Proofreading and Editing
• Dissertations
• Editing Tools
• Personal Statements
• Professional Writing
• Proofreading and Editing
• Thesis Proposals
• Uncategorized
• Working From Home
• Writing Fiction
• Writing Guides

Italics and Quotes for Titles: A Guide

Get 400 words proofread and edited for free

We’ve all been there. We’re writing along, solidly in the groove, when the Formatting Wall appears around a seemingly safe corner. Abruptly halting, you wonder: How the heck am I supposed to format this title?

Titles come in many shapes and sizes, but they all have rules for formatting that you master with just a little work. Italics, quotes, even plain text: they all apply in certain situations. How do you know which is which?

Use italics to set apart the title of a standalone work or a “container work”—that is, a work that has other, smaller works within it. Examples of titles that should be italicized include:

• Academic journals
• Music albums
• Large musical compositions such as symphonies and operas
• Anthologies of poems
• Art exhibitions

For example:

My brother insists that Fists of Fury is the best movie ever made.

Have you read the latest issue of Scottish Archaeology Journal ? It’s riveting!

I know it’s not a popular opinion, but I think La Boheme, by Giacomo Puccini, is an overrated opera.

I can’t believe the TV show Supernatural is in its fourteenth season.

Get a free sample proofread and edit for your references. Two professional proofreaders will proofread and edit your references.

Use quotation marks to set apart the title of a subsidiary work or a work that is part of a bigger piece (one where the title of that bigger piece would be italicized). Examples of when to use quotes include:

• Book chapters
• Articles (published in a journal)
• Short stories
• Song titles
• TV episodes
• Works of art (including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and performance art)

Why do I have to read Hemingway’s “ A Clean, Well-Lighted Place ” in every English class?

I can’t get the tune to “Amazing Grace” out of my head.

Every time I think of William Carlos Williams, I get irritated. “ This Is Just to Say ” is a beautiful poem, but it reminds me of my terrible roommate.

And so you can easily demonstrate which is the work “inside” the other work with proper punctuation:

My favorite episode of Doctor Who is “Blink,” without a doubt.

I love everything by the Beatles, but I think “I Should Have Known Better” from A Hard Day’s Night is an underrated classic.

Modern Construction Envelopes is a very useful reference in general, but chapter 12, “Fabric Roofs,” is groundbreaking.

The highlight of the recent exhibition, Pin-Ups: Toulouse-Lautrec and the Art of Celebrity, had to be Steinlen’s “ Cabaret du Chat Noir .” It was fascinating to see in person what I’ve seen on a wall in every undergraduate dorm across the country.

There are, of course, exceptions. A few types of publications and creative works stand a little apart from the general categories of “standalone/wrapper work” and “subsidiary work.”

For example, dissertations are typically standalone documents, but their titles go in quotation marks.

The best dissertation ever written is “The False Optic: Poisoned Fictional Objects in Renaissance Revenge Tragedies.”

I’m always moved to tears by Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor , “From the New World .”

How to Remember

A relatively easy way to remember these rules involves whether a work is “big” or “little.” If it’s a grand, sweeping thing that might contain other bits within it, like a book or journal, then use italics. If it’s a smaller thing that might itself be contained within something else, like a newspaper article or work of art in an exhibition, then it goes in quotes.

Oh, and don’t forget to capitalize those titles correctly , in addition to formatting them right.

Get a free sample proofread and edit for your document. Two professional proofreaders will proofread and edit your document.

Get a Free Sample

We will get your free sample back in three to six hours!

We proofread documents 24/7 Support 888-833-8385

Customer Service

Get in touch.

ProofreadingPal LLC 105 Iowa Ave., Ste. 214 Iowa City, IA 52240

Call Us 888-833-8385

Live Customer Support Hours Sun.-Thurs. 8 a.m. to midnight CT and Fri.-Sat. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT

Submit Documents 24/7

© 2010 - 2020 ProofreadingPal LLC - All Rights Reserved.

The Vocative Comma Is Important, People!  ·  September 25, 2022

8 Tips to Make Your Writing Sound More Formal  ·  August 29, 2022

Worlde Tips and Tricks  ·  March 10, 2022

Worlde Tips and Tricks  ·  February 25, 2022

Top 4 Misspelled Words  ·  November 5, 2021

How to Capitalize Medicine  ·  October 1, 2021

How to Capitalize Medicine  ·  August 18, 2021

4 Fixes for Comment Boxes in MS Word  ·  January 17, 2021

How to Avoid Wordiness  ·  July 15, 2020

Write an Effective Blog Post  ·  June 9, 2020

Proofreading Services Rates  ·  April 19, 2020

How to Make Your Writing More Inclusive  ·  March 5, 2020

How to Make Your Writing More Inclusive  ·  February 27, 2020

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 27, 2019

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 26, 2019

Common Apostrophe Errors  ·  December 19, 2019

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 18, 2019

Capitalization in APA, Chicago, MLA, and AP  ·  August 27, 2019

Avoiding Common Capitalization Errors  ·  July 31, 2019

Italics vs Quotation Marks in Titles

Explanation.

Generally and grammatically speaking, put titles of shorter works in quotation marks but italicize titles of longer works. For example, put a “song title” in quotation marks but italicize the title of the album it appears on.

Titles in Italics

( source type : example)

Books : On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Magazines/Journals : Newsweek or Cave Canem Newspapers : St. Louis Post-Dispatch Pamphlets : How to Take Your Own Blood Pressure Movies/Plays/Musicals : The Producers or Two Trains Running or Hamilton Long Poems : The Odyssey or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Radio/TV Program : This American Life or Game of Thrones Ballet/Dance : Les Sylphides or Rodeo Operas/Musical Pieces : La Traviata or Rhapsody in Blue Paintings/Sculptures : Mona Lisa or The Burghers of Calais Ships/Planes/Trains : Titanic or Air Force One or the Mistral Musical Albums : A Hard Day’s Night Computer/Video Games : Minecraft , Fortnite Web Sites : Facebook , Wikipedia

Titles in Quotation Marks

Articles/Essays : “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Book Chapters : “Legal Issues and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome” Short Stories : “Fly Already” Short Poem s: “At Black River” Songs : “Can’t Buy Me Love” Radio/TV Episodes : “Rookie” from Queen Sono

Works Needing Capitals But Not Italics or Quotation Marks

Music in Number or Key : Prelude and Fugue in E flat Major Sacred Writings : Bible or Koran or Bhagavadgita Editions or Societies : Kittredge’s Shakespeare or Anglo-Norman Text Society Diseases : Tay-Sachs disease (but not cancer, polio, leukemia, etc.) Acronyms : FBI, NAACP, GIF Conventional Titles : U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence Student’s Paper Title : Role of the Djinns in Islamic Belief

Generate accurate MLA citations for free

• Knowledge Base
• MLA titles: Formatting and capitalization rules

MLA Titles | How to Format & Capitalize Source Titles

Published on April 2, 2019 by Courtney Gahan . Revised on March 5, 2024.

In MLA style , source titles appear either in italics or in quotation marks:

• Italicize the title of a self-contained whole (e.g. a book, film, journal, or website).
• Use  quotation marks around the title if it is part of a larger work (e.g. a chapter of a book, an article in a journal, or a page on a website).

All major words in a title are capitalized . The same format is used in the Works Cited list and in the text itself.

When you use the Scribbr MLA Citation Generator , the correct formatting and capitalization are automatically applied to titles.

Generate accurate MLA citations with Scribbr

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text.

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

Capitalization in mla titles, punctuation in mla titles, titles within titles, exceptions to mla title formatting, sources with no title, abbreviating titles, titles in foreign languages, frequently asked questions about mla titles.

In all titles and subtitles, capitalize the first and last words, as well as any other principal words.

What to capitalize

What not to capitalize

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Use the same punctuation as appears in the source title. However, if there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space, even if different (or no) punctuation is used in the source.

Example of a work with a subtitle

The exception is when the title ends in a question mark, exclamation point or dash, in which case you keep the original punctuation:

Sometimes a title contains another title—for example, the title of an article about a novel might contain that novel’s title.

For titles within titles, in general, maintain the same formatting as you would if the title stood on its own.

Titles and names that fall into the following categories are not italicized or enclosed in quotation marks:

• Scripture (e.g. the Bible, the Koran, the Gospel)
• Laws, acts and related documents (e.g. the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution , the Paris Agreement)
• Musical compositions identified by form, number and key (e.g. Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in C minor, op. 67)
• Conferences, seminars, workshops and courses (e.g. MLA Annual Convention)

Sections of a work

Words that indicate a particular section of a work are not italicized or placed within quotation marks. They are also not capitalized when mentioned in the text.

Examples of such sections include:

• introduction
• list of works cited
• bibliography

Introductions, prefaces, forewords and afterwords

Descriptive terms such as “introduction”, “preface”, “foreword” and “afterword” are capitalized if mentioned in an MLA in-text citation or in the Works Cited list, but not when mentioned in the text itself.

Example of descriptive term capitalization

In-text citation: (Brontë, Preface )

In text: In her preface to the work, added in a later edition, Brontë debates the morality of creating characters such as those featured in Wuthering Heights .

If there is a unique title for the introduction, preface, foreword or afterword, include that title in quotation marks instead of the generic section name when referencing the source in the Works Cited list or an in-text citation.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

For sources with no title, a brief description of the source acts as the title.

Example of a source reference with no title

Follow these rules for capitalization:

• Capitalize the first word
• Capitalize proper nouns
• Ignore other MLA rules for capitalization

There are some exceptions to this general format: descriptions including titles of other works, such as comments on articles or reviews of movies; untitled short messages, like tweets; email messages; and untitled poems.

Exceptions to general format for sources with no title

If you need to mention the name of a work in the text itself, state the full title, but omit the subtitle.

If you need to refer to the work multiple times, you may shorten the title to something familiar or obvious to the reader. For example, Huckleberry Finn for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . If in doubt, prefer the noun phrase.

If the standalone abbreviation may not be clear, you can introduce it in parentheses, following the standard guidelines for abbreviations. For example, The Merchant of Venice ( MV ) . For Shakespeare and the Bible , there are well-established abbreviations you can use.

When you abbreviate a title, make sure you keep the formatting consistent. Even if the abbreviation consists only of letters, as in the MV example, it must be italicized or placed within quotation marks in the same way as it would be when written in full.

Abbreviating very long titles in the Works Cited list

Titles should normally be given in full in the Works Cited list, but if any of your sources has a particularly long title (often the case with older works), you can use an ellipsis to shorten it here. This is only necessary with extremely long titles such as the example below.

In the Works Cited list, if you are listing a work with a title in a language other than English, you can add the translated title in square brackets.

Example of a reference with a translated title

If you are using the foreign-language title in the text itself, you can also include the translation in parenthesis. For example, O Alquimista ( The Alchemist ) .

You don’t need to include a translation in your reference list or in the text if you expect your readers to be familiar with the original language. For example, you wouldn’t translate the title of a  French novel you were writing about in the context of a French degree.

Non-Latin script languages

For works in a language that does not use the Latin alphabet, such as Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, or Russian, be consistent with how you mention the source titles and also quotations from within them.

For example, if you choose to write a Russian title in the Cyrillic form, do that throughout the document. If you choose to use the Romanized form, stick with that. Do not alternate between the two.

Yes. MLA style uses title case, which means that all principal words (nouns, pronouns , verbs, adjectives , adverbs , and some conjunctions ) are capitalized.

This applies to titles of sources as well as the title of, and subheadings in, your paper. Use MLA capitalization style even when the original source title uses different capitalization .

In MLA style , book titles appear in italics, with all major words capitalized. If there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space (even if no colon appears in the source). For example:

The format is the same in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. However, when you mention the book title in the text, you don’t have to include the subtitle.

The title of a part of a book—such as a chapter, or a short story or poem in a collection—is not italicized, but instead placed in quotation marks.

When a book’s chapters are written by different authors, you should cite the specific chapter you are referring to.

When all the chapters are written by the same author (or group of authors), you should usually cite the entire book, but some styles include exceptions to this.

• In APA Style , single-author books should always be cited as a whole, even if you only quote or paraphrase from one chapter.
• In MLA Style , if a single-author book is a collection of stand-alone works (e.g. short stories ), you should cite the individual work.
• In Chicago Style , you may choose to cite a single chapter of a single-author book if you feel it is more appropriate than citing the whole book.

The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style , but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals , newspapers , websites , or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:

Use the same formatting in the Works Cited entry and when referring to the article in the text itself.

The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.

This quick guide to MLA style  explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Gahan, C. (2024, March 05). MLA Titles | How to Format & Capitalize Source Titles. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/mla/titles/

Is this article helpful?

Courtney Gahan

Other students also liked, mla format for academic papers and essays, creating an mla header, author names in mla | citing one or multiple authors, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

As you will often find in English, there is an exception to the general rule. If you cite a play or a novel that's included in a large anthology of literature, the play or novel should be placed within quotation marks for the bibliography but still underlined or italicized in your essay. Thus, Death of a Salesman is italicized in your essay, but it is in quotation marks ("Death of a Salesman") when placed in a bibliography that cites the play within the anthology Discovering Literature . Also remember that all words in a title should be capitalized (except for interior conjunctions [e.g. Love o r Money ], which may be lower case).

bigwords101

The Grammar Diva ™

Italics vs. Quotation Marks

May 9, 2013 By Arlene Miller 14 Comments

So you are writing a book title, and you wonder if you should put it in italics or quotations marks. What about a newspaper article? Yes, there are rules and they are not difficult. In general, big things go in italics, and parts of things go in quotation marks. If you are writing by hand (does anyone even do that anymore??), you can’t do italics (no, really you can’t), so you underline instead.

The following things should be in italics or underlined (please, not both!):

Book titles, magazine titles, newspaper names, movie titles, TV show titles, CD titles, pieces of art, operas, play titles, and even boats and airplanes (if you happen to give your boat or plane a name). 

The following things should be in quotation marks: (These should be double quotes, not single, unless you are quoting something within something already in quotes).

Chapter titles, articles in magazines and newspapers, TV episode titles, song titles, arias in operas, and any names of scenes or acts in a play.

Next question: Which words are capitalized in titles, anyway? Next blog post!

October 11, 2013 at 5:45 pm

I was reminded of this thread when I came across a question in this week’s Ken Jennings’ Tuesday Trivia (good fun at http://www.ken-jennings.com ). It was: “2. The Holy or the Broken is a 2012 book about the history of what song, originally written in 1984 but better known in a series of more recent cover versions?” I don’t know the book, but the question, without setting the title apart, verges on the confusion caused by the great “eats, shoots and leaves.”

October 11, 2013 at 6:01 pm

You’re right! Pretty confusing!

July 13, 2013 at 12:48 pm

I have always set book titles apart with underlining or quotes. I am afraid that this practice is quickly becoming a thing of the past with a majority of newspapers and magazines simply using the capitals that come with the title. This may come from the blogosphere where no constraints or tradtions are regularly observed.

July 13, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Book titles should be italicized. I have seen them quoted in newspapers (incorrect). I would rather be right than modern!

July 13, 2013 at 5:46 pm

My handwriting is bad enough without trying to write italics, I’ll try to find some examples of leaving any designator off.

July 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Don’t worry — you can’t write italics. If you aren’t typing, you simply underline instead of italicizing.

July 15, 2013 at 4:57 pm

I agree about being right rather than modern, Ms Qixote. I my first post here, I mentioned I read about you and this website in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. In Sunday’s book section I was amused to find all the books’ titles in quotation marks. Go gettem, Ms Diva!

July 15, 2013 at 6:24 pm

I’m not surprised. I think someone has to tell them about it!

May 23, 2013 at 9:03 am

If you told me back in college that someday I’d long for a courses in grammar, I would have thought you were insane. But here I am, eagerly awaiting your posts and wishing for more! Here’s a question. A writer I know is including the name of a boat in her story. She wrote: “We called it “the Wild Orange.” I know to put “Wild Orange” in italics, but what about “the”? Is it part of the title ( If so, it would be capitalized and italicized, right?) But I’m thinking that if I saw the name on the boat itself, it would just say “Wild Orange.” Soooo, dear diva, what do you think?

May 23, 2013 at 1:05 pm

Well, since she named the boat, I guess she can include The or not include it! I guess it depends what name she has painted on it! It could be really either one. If she has The Wild Orange painted on it, then everything is initial capped and in italics. If they just named the boat and didn’t put the name on the boat, I guess you would have to ask her what the actual name is. I could see it either way. I am glad you like the posts! I teach a five week course at College of Marin that has all this glorious stuff in it. The next one will the in the fall.Finishing up one tonight and then taking the summer off (from College of Marin, anyway!)

May 13, 2013 at 4:40 pm

Thanks Arlene. I knew most of these rule applications, but I still feel strange with the quote within a quote. As a reader that grammar rule makes sense. As a writer, I feel like I am attempting a headstand hatha yoga pose. That’s why I love good grammarians, copy editors and attentive readers.

May 13, 2013 at 10:47 pm

Yeah — you can always rewrite to avoid a quote within a quote. Rewriting is a good way to avoid some sticky grammatical situations!

May 11, 2013 at 9:50 pm

Arlene So how do you do this in an email, where you may not be able to italicize, or underline, or bold? In emails, I often use quotes around a book title, just to set it apart.

May 12, 2013 at 8:25 am

Really good question! I get annoyed when I cannot use italics!Why don’t they design programs for good grammarians! Seriously, I know most people just put quotes around things when there is no way to italicize or underline. I tend to just leave it and do nothing. I feel as if it looks incorrect if I am quoting something that shouldn’t be in quotes. I don’t know if there is any standard on this.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Latest Blog Posts

September 12, 2024 By Arlene Miller Leave a Comment

I assume that most of you are readers. How do you choose your books?

Cuss Words That Are Not Rated X

September 5, 2024 By Arlene Miller Leave a Comment

You  won’t get into trouble with these — and your kids won’t learn the bad words you really want to say!

All About Adjectives

August 29, 2024 By Arlene Miller Leave a Comment

Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns, pronouns, and sometimes other adjectives.

More Blog Posts Here!

When to Punctuate Titles in Italics or Quotes

Illustration by Claire Cohen. © 2018 ThoughtCo.

• Learning Styles & Skills
• Homework Tips
• Study Methods
• Time Management
• Private School
• College Admissions
• College Life
• Graduate School
• Business School
• Distance Learning
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

You may have wondered in the middle of typing up a research project : Do I italicize  a song title? What about a painting?​ Even the most experienced writers have a problem remembering the proper punctuation for certain types of titles. Books are italicized (or underlined) and articles are put in quotation marks. That's about as far as many people can remember.​

Many teachers require students to use Modern Language Association style for research papers and essays covering language arts, cultural studies, and the humanities . There is a trick to remembering how to treat titles in MLA style, and it works well enough that you can commit most types of titles to memory. It's the big and little trick.

Big Things vs. Little Things

Big things and things that can stand on their own, like books, are italicized. Little things that are dependent or that come as part of a group, like chapters, are put into quotation marks. Think of a CD or an album as a major (big) work that can be divided into smaller parts, or songs. The individual song names (small part) are punctuated with quotation marks .

For example:

• The Sweet Escape , by Gwen Stefani, includes the song "Wind It Up."

While this is not a perfect rule, it can be helpful for determining whether to italicize or surround an item in quotation marks when you have no resources at hand.

Furthermore, italicize or underline any published collection, like a book of poetry. Put the individual entry, like a poem, in quotation marks. However: a long, epic poem that is often published on its own would be treated like a book. The Odyssey is one example.

Punctuating Titles of Works of Art

Creating a work of art is an enormous task. For that reason, you can think of art as a big accomplishment. That might sound a bit corny, but it will help you remember. Individual works of art, like paintings and sculptures, are underlined or italicized:

• Michelangelo 's David
• The Last Supper

Note that a photograph—although not any less significant or important—is often much smaller than a work of created art, and is placed in quotation marks. Following are guidelines for punctuating titles according to MLA standards.

Titles and Names to Italicize

Works to put in italics include:

• A sculpture or statue
• A TV Series
• A cartoon series
• An encyclopedia
• A newspaper

Titles to Put Into Quotation Marks

When deciding how to handle smaller works, put quotation marks around:

• A short story
• A commercial
• An individual episode in a TV series (like "The Soup Nazi" on Seinfeld)
• A cartoon episode, like "Trouble With Dogs"
• A newspaper story

More Tips on Punctuating Titles

Some titles are merely capitalized and not given additional punctuation. These include:

• Religious works, like the Bible or the Koran
• MLA Format Example (With Sample Pages)
• Organize Your Homework With Color Coded Supplies
• How to Determine a Reliable Source on the Internet
• Learning Styles: Holistic or Global Learning
• When to Use Whom vs. Who
• When and How to Write Roman Numerals
• What Is the Plural of Genus?
• What Does Critical Reading Really Mean?
• Choosing a Strong Research Topic
• 8 Ways to Increase Your Attention Span
• Top 10 Healthy Homework Habits
• How to Understand a Difficult Reading Passage
• Cheating Is More Serious in College Than in High School
• How Does Personality Affect Study Habits?
• Setting Goals to Succeed at School
• Make the Most of Your Tactile Learning Style

• Readers Read
• Screenwriting
• Songwriting
• Writing Contests

The general rule is to use italics on book titles, album titles and publication names for a web document or when you are using a word processing tool. If it is something handwritten you should underline it instead of using italics.

Longer works are italicized while shorter works like song titles or an article from a magazine are put in quotes and are not italicized.

Here are some italics examples:

2024 Winners of The Dragon Awards Announced

Writers Taking Jobs Writing to Train AI

Costco Plans to Sell Books Only From September to December

Karlie Kloss to Relaunch Life Magazine at Bedford Media

NBF Expands National Book Awards Eligibility Criteria

• Self-publishing
• Technical Writing
• Writing Prompts

Formatting Titles

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published October 2, 2020 · Updated November 5, 2020

Let’s face it: For whatever reason, formatting titles can be confusing, especially if you think about all the titles that need proper formatting–the title placed on the title page of a paper, the title of a journal article mentioned in the body of a paper, the title of a newspaper or a website on the list of references. There are titles of books and titles of chapters in those books; titles of blogs and titles of blog entries. Some titles are italicized and some are put in quotation marks. Titles on the list of references require formatting–some titles use title case, some sentence case; some titles are italicized and some are not. And then there are those situations where titles are used in in-text citations–some titles are truncated and italicized; some are put in quotation marks–you get the idea. 

First off, I am not going to address how to format titles when citing in the paper or listing on the list of references—those are formatting guidelines for another time. I am going to focus on titles on the title page, the first page of the paper, and within a paper. Here is what you need to keep straight:

Titles require special capitalization called title case. Title case requires one to

• capitalize the first letter of the first and last words of a title;
• capitalize the first letter of all verbs;
• capitalize all words of four or more letters;
• capitalize the first letter of all other words except a, an, the, short conjunctions such as “for, and, but,” and prepositions of fewer than four letters (words like “up, in, off”);
• capitalize the first letter of a word following a colon or dash;
• capitalize the first letter of a subtitle. 

When a title appears on the title page of an APA Style 7th edition student paper, that title should be centered, bolded, and in title case—no need to use all caps, no need to italicize or underline, and no need to use quotation marks or place a period at the end. 

Simply type out the title using title case and bold it–that’s it.

On the first page of the essay, center and repeat the title, bold it, and use title case. Again, do not use any special formatting. Do not use a bigger font size or style. Do not underline or italicize and so forth. Just use title case, bold, and center the title on the first page of the essay.

Easy enough, right?

Titles that appear within an essay require special formatting in addition to title case. If the title is for an article—content that is part of a greater whole—then the title should have quotation marks around it. If the title is for a book, journal, newspaper, or some other whole work, then the title is italicized.

Let’s say you have an article titled “The New Coffee Culture” that appears in the journal Studies in Popular Culture . Let’s also say that for whatever reason, you name both titles in the body of your paper. The article “The New Coffee Culture” appears in the journal Studies in Popular Culture , so the article is content that appears in a greater whole, right? 

Both titles would be in title case. The article “The New Coffee Culture” would have quotation marks around it, and the title of the journal, Studies in Popular Culture , would be italicized. 

I hope this blogcast clarifies exactly what you need to do when formatting titles in typical usage situations in APA style. 

Until next week–

Kurtis Clements

Share this:

• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)
• Next story  APA Style Formatting in PowerPoint
• Previous story  Bias-Free Language

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Quotation Marks vs. Italics

When do you use quotation marks vs. italics.

Quotation marks , a type of punctuation mark, are used to set apart titles of shorter works such as short stories, poems, songs, articles, and famous speeches. Italics , a typesetting in which letters slant to the right, are used to set apart titles of longer works such as books, movies, magazines, plays, and works of art.

Examples of Quotation Marks vs. Italics

Some examples of when to use quotation marks vs. italics would be the following:

When to Use Quotation Marks

Short Story: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Poem: “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe

Song: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana

Speech: “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” by Patrick Henry

When to Use Italics

Book: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Movie: Citizen Kane

Magazine: Forbes

Play: Othello by William Shakespeare

Painting: The Scream by Edvard Munch

Download a Free Worksheet on Quotation Marks vs. Italics!

Click the image below to download your free worksheet on quotation marks vs. italics!

Want to learn more about quotation marks vs. italics?

GrammarFlip is a comprehensive grammar and writing program designed to individualize student learning while saving ELA teachers time in the classroom. Built by teachers, for teachers.

Start with a free grammar diagnostic assessment and then customize your lessons accordingly.

No payment required.

Explore More GrammarFlip Lessons!

Parts of Speech lessons provide the building blocks of grammar. GrammarFlip covers these topics in detail to ensure a solid foundation is built. First time learners and students seeking to review the parts of speech can both benefit from the instructional videos and slide show reviews.

Common Nouns Proper Nouns Coordinating Conjunctions Correlative Conjunctions Action Verbs Linking Verbs Verb Phrases Verb Phrases with Interrupters Personal Pronouns & Antecedents Common Adjectives Proper Adjectives Nouns Functioning as Adjectives

Demonstrative Adjectives Demonstrative Pronouns Possessive Adjectives Possessive Pronouns Adverbs Modifying Verbs Adverbs Modifying Adjectives Adverbs Modifying Other Adverbs Prepositions Transitive Verbs Intransitive Verbs Relative Pronouns Relative Adverbs

Nominative Case Pronouns Objective Case Pronouns Possessive Case Pronouns Reflexive Pronouns Intensive Pronouns Interrogative Pronouns Interrogative Adjectives Indefinite Pronouns Indefinite Adjectives Interjections Subordinating Conjunctions Conjunctive Adverbs

Parts of the Sentence lessons are critical for understanding how the parts of speech function in language construction. From the basic to the advanced, these lessons will cover a wide range of grammar topics that can be used in any grade level or classroom.

Simple and Complete Subjects Simple and Complete Predicates Compound Subjects Compound Predicates The Understood You Compound Subjects Using “Or” Hard-to-Find Subjects in Questions Hard-to-Find Subjects (Here/There) Objects of Prepositions Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional Phrases as Adjectives Prepositional Phrases as Adverbs Direct Objects Indirect Objects Objective Complements Subject Complements Phrases Defined Appositive Phrases Clauses Defined Independent Clauses Dependent/Subordinate Clauses

Simple Sentences Compound Sentences Complex Sentences Compound-Complex Sentences Adjective Clauses Adverb Clauses Noun Clauses Participles and Participial Phrases Gerunds and Gerund Phrases Infinitives and Infinitive Phrases

Mechanics and Usage lessons equip students with the necessary skills to communicate clearly to all audiences. With a focus on the application of these concepts in student writing, these lessons tie together both simple constructions of grammar as well as the more complex such that any age or skill level of student will benefit.

Capitalization: Basic Rules Capitalization: Advanced Rules Commas: Items in a Series Active Voice vs. Passive Voice Hyphens Commas: Between Two Adjectives Common Homophones Commonly Confused Pairs Apostrophes: Basic Rules Apostrophes: Individual vs. Joint Ownership

Quotation Marks in Dialogue Quotation Marks vs. Italics Misplaced Modifiers (Phrases) Subject/Verb Agreement Dashes Parentheses Who vs. Whom Semicolons w/ Independent Clauses Commas w/ Introductory Clauses Parts of Speech vs. Parts of the Sentence

Run-on Sentences Comma Splices Sentence Fragments Parallel Construction Colons Elliptical Clauses Misplaced Modifiers (Clauses) Dangling Participles Possessive Use with Gerunds Commas: Essential & Non-Essential Elements

Home Features Plans & Pricing Reviews

Instructional Method Blog About Contact

Login Support Request a Quote Get 30 Days Free

© GrammarFlip 2024  |  All Rights Reserved  |   Privacy & Terms

Use of Italics

This page addresses when to use italics, when to avoid italics, how to use italics for emphasis, and when to use reverse italics. Additional cases and examples are provided in the Publication Manual ; users’ most common questions are addressed here.

When to use italics

In APA Style papers, use italics for the following cases:

When not to use italics

Do not use italics for the following cases in APA Style papers:

Italics for emphasis

In general, avoid using italics for emphasis. Instead, rewrite your sentence to provide emphasis. For example, place important words or phrases at the beginning or end of a sentence instead of in the middle, or break long sentences into several shorter sentences.

However, do use italics if emphasis might otherwise be lost or the material might be misread, as in the following example.

Whereas creative self-efficacy typically focuses on confidence beliefs prior to engaging in creative endeavors, perceived creative credit focuses on the beliefs developed after engaging in creative tasks (Ng & Yam, 2019, p. 1146).

If you add emphasis to a direct quotation, place the words “[emphasis added]” in square brackets after the words you have italicized.

Research on creativity indicates that “promoting creativity without attending to the subsequent psychological and behavioral changes decreases rather than increases [emphasis added] organizational performance over the long run” (Ng & Yam, 2019, p. 1157).

Reverse italics

When words that would normally be italicized appear within text that is already italicized, those words should be set in standard (nonitalic) type, referred to as reverse italicization . For example, if an italic symbol appears in a table title (which is also italicized), use standard type for the symbol.

Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants ( N = 250)

Italics and reverse italics are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 6.22 and 6.23 and the Concise Guide Sections 4.15 and 4.16

From the APA Style blog

Navigating the not-so-hidden treasures of the APA Style website

This post links directly to APA Style topics of interest that users may not even know exist on the website.

Writing Center

• Academic Essays
• Approaching Writing
• Sentence-level Writing
• Write for Student-Run Media
• Writing in the Core
• Access Smartthinking
• TutorTrac Appointments
• SMART Space

Titles—Quotations or Italics?

Titles of Works

The titles of some works are italicized; others are placed in quotation marks. The general principle governing this style seems to be that larger works, such as novels and feature-length films, are italicized, and shorter works, such as short stories, and subdivisions within larger works, such as chapters, are rendered in quotations marks. Use this list to determine whether to put a title in italics or quotation marks:

Titles of…                                                

Books — italicize                                   

Short stories — put in quotation marks

Essays — put in quotation marks

Chapters — put in quotation marks

Magazines — italicize                                   

Magazine articles — put in quotation marks

Newspapers — italicize                       

Newspaper articles — put in quotation marks

Films (feature length) — italicize

Films (short) — put in quotation marks

Television shows — italicize                       

Television episodes — put in quotation marks

Full-length plays — italicize                       

Short plays — put in quotation marks

CDs — italicize                                   

Songs — put in quotation marks

Epic poems — italicize                       

Poems — put in quotation marks

Varsity Sentence Practice — Appositives

Quick tip about citing sources in mla style, who vs. whom.

• Student Life
• Career Success
• Champlain College Online
• About Champlain College
• Centers of Experience
• Media Inquiries
• Contact Champlain
• Maps & Directions
• Consumer Information

The Editor's Blog

Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.

• Copyright, Print, Citation
• Full Archives
• Writing Essentials
• The Magic of Fiction
• (Even More) Punctuation in Dialogue (PDF)
• Books by Beth Hill
• NaNo Support 2016
• Writing Prompts
• NaNo Write-in
• NaNo Support 2017
• A Reader Asks… (32)
• A Writer's Life (62)
• Announcements (9)
• Beginning Writers (44)
• Beyond the Basics (31)
• Beyond the Writing (2)
• Contests (4)
• Craft & Style (171)
• Definitions (15)
• Editing Tips (18)
• For Editors (11)
• Genre Requirements (1)
• Grammar & Punctuation (61)
• How to (19)
• Launch Week (13)
• Member Events (1)
• Recommendations (14)
• Self-Publishing (5)
• Site Business (4)
• Story Structure (1)
• Writing Challenge (6)
• Writing Essentials (7)
• Writing Tips (120)
• February 2020
• December 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• December 2017
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• February 2016
• January 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• December 2014
• November 2014
• October 2014
• September 2014
• August 2014
• January 2014
• December 2013
• November 2013
• October 2013
• September 2013
• August 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010

A Novel Edit

Beth's Books

Reference Books

This Blog's Purpose

Marking Text—Choosing Between Italics and Quotation Marks

An error in the use of italics or quotation marks—using one rather than the other or not using either when their use is required—is not likely a problem that will have an agent or publisher turning down your manuscript, especially if your manuscript isn’t bulging with other errors. Yet knowing when to use both italics and quotation marks is useful and important for writers. The cleaner the manuscript, the fewer problems it will be perceived to have. And when rules are followed, the manuscript will have consistency; if you don’t know the rules, it’s likely that you won’t make the same choices consistently throughout a story. And if you self-publish, when you’re the one doing the editing, you’ll definitely want to know how and when to use both italics and quotation marks and know how to choose between them.

To start off, I will point out that there is no need to underline anything in a novel manuscript . Writers used to underline text where they intended italics, but because it’s now so easy to see and find and identify italics, underlining is no longer necessary, not for fiction manuscripts.

Note: Underlining may be required for school or college writing projects or other purposes. I’m strictly addressing fiction manuscripts here.

Without underlining, the choices are italics, quotation marks, and unmarked or plain text.

Let’s start with the last option—plain text—first.

________________________

Not all text that seems to require italics or quotation marks actually does. Most words in your manuscript will be roman text—unchanged by italics—and, apart from dialogue, will not be enclosed by quotation marks. Yet sometimes writers are confused about italics and quotation marks, especially when dealing with named entities. A quick rule: Simple names need only be capitalized—no other marks are necessary.

This is one writing question that’s easy to overthink once you begin editing, but a name usually only needs to be capitalized; it typically doesn’t require italics or quotation marks. (There are exceptions, of course.)

Capitalize names of people, places, and things . This means that Bob, Mr. Smith, Grandma Elliott, and Fido are capitalized but not italicized or put in quotation marks. The same is true for Disney World, the Grand Canyon, Edie’s Bistro, and the World Series. When a person’s title is paired with a name—Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Reverend Thomas—both name and title are capitalized. But when a title is not used as a name—the president is young, the pastor can sing—no capitalization is required.

Nouns are typically the words that you’ll capitalize, but not all nouns are capitalized. Capitalize named nouns . So Fido is capitalized, but dog is not; Aunt Margaret (used as a name) is capitalized, but my aunt is not; my aunt Margaret gets a mix of capitalization.

Brand names and trademarks are typically capitalized, but some have unusual capitalizations (iPad, eBay, TaylorMade, adidas). Refer to dictionaries and to company guidelines or Internet sources for correct capitalization and spelling. Note that home pages of websites may feature decorative text; look at pages with corporate details for correct information.

You may make a style decision and capitalize such words according to established rules, and that would be a valid decision. Yet a name is a name, and spelling or capitalizing it the way its creators intended may well be the better choice.

That’s it for most named people or things or places—most are capitalized but do not require italics or quotation marks. A quick rule:  Names  (of people, places, and things) need to be capitalized, but titles  (of things) need both capitalization and either quotation marks or italics.

Items in the following categories need neither italics nor quotation marks (unless italics or quotation marks are an intrinsic part of the title). This is only a very short list, but most named nouns are treated similarly.

car manufacturers General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota car brands or divisions: Buick, Chevrolet car names: Riviera, Touareg, Camry restaurants: Chili’s, Sally’s Place, Chuck’s Rib House scriptures and revered religious books: the Bible, Koran, the Book of Common Prayer books of the Bible: Genesis, Acts, the Gospel according to Matthew wars and battles: Korean War, Russian Revolution, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Hastings companies: Coca-Cola, Amazon, Barclays, Nokia product names: Coke, Kleenex, Oreo shops: Dolly’s Delights, Macy’s, Coffee House museums, schools and colleges: the High Museum, the Hermitage, Orchard Elementary School, the University of Notre Dame houses of worship: First Baptist Church of Abbieville, the Cathedral of St. Philip, Temple Sinai, City Center Community Masjid Note : There is much more to capitalization, yet that topic requires an article (or five) of its own. Look for such an article in the future.  The Chicago Manual of Style has an in-depth chapter on capitalization; I recommend you search it for specifics.

Quotation Marks and Italics

Beyond capitalization, some  nouns are also distinguished by italics or quotation marks. Think in terms of titles here, but typically titles of things and not people.

So we’re talking book, movie, song, and TV show titles; titles of newspapers and magazines and titles of articles in those newspapers and magazines; titles of artwork and poems.

One odd category included here is vehicles.  Not brand names of vehicles but names of individual craft: spaceships, airships, ships, and trains.

But which titles get quotation marks and which get italics?

The general rule is that titles of works that are made up of smaller/shorter divisions are italicized, and the smaller divisions are put in quotation marks . This means a book title is italicized, and chapter titles (but not chapter numbers) are in quotation marks. A TV show title is italicized, but episode titles are in quotation marks. An album or CD title is put in italics, but the song titles are in quotation marks.

Note :  This rule for chapter titles in books is not referring to chapter titles of a manuscript itself, which are not put in quotation marks within the manuscript . Use quotation marks in your text if a character or narrator is thinking about or speaking a chapter title, not for your own chapter titles.

Quotation marks and italics are both also used for other purposes in fiction. For example, we typically use italics when we use a word as a word.

My stylist always says rebound when he means rebond .

I counted only half a dozen um s in the chairman’s speech. (Note that the s making um plural is not italicized.)

Since a list is quick and easy to read, let’s simply list categories for both italics and quotation marks.

Barring exceptions, items from the categories should be italicized or put in quotation marks, as indicated, in your stories.

Use Italics For

Titles : Titles of specific types of works are italicized. This is true for both narration and dialogue.

books TV shows radio shows movies plays operas and ballets long poems long musical pieces (such as symphonies) newspapers magazines journals works of art (paintings, sculptures, photographs) pamphlets reports podcasts blogs (but not websites in general, which are only capitalized)

Odds and Ends: Titles of cartoons and comic strips ( Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Pearls Before Swine ) are italicized. Exhibitions at small venues (such as a museum) are italicized ( BODIES . . . The Exhibition ) but fairs and other major exhibitions (the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition) are only capitalized.

Examples : To Kill a Mockingbird (book), Citizen Kane (movie), A Prairie Home Companion (radio show), La bohème  (opera), Paradise Lost (long poem), Rhapsody in Blue (long musical piece),  Washington Post (newspaper), Car and Driver (magazine), Starry Night (painting), The Age of Reason (pamphlet), This American Life (podcast), The Editor’s Blog (blog)

Exception : Generic titles of musical works are not italicized. This includes those named by number (op. 3 or no. 5) or by key (Nocturne in B Major) and those simply named for the musical form (Requiem or Overture). If names and generic titles are combined, italicize only the name, not the generic title.

Exception : Titles of artwork dating from antiquity whose creators are unknown are not italicized. (the Venus de Milo or the Seated Scribe)

Ship names :  names of ships on water, in space, in the air

Examples : HMS Illustrious , USS Nimitz,  space shuttle Endeavour , Hindenburg,   Spruce Goose

Notes: 1. The abbreviations for Her Majesty’s ship (HMS) and United States ship (USS) are not italicized.

2. The current recommendation of The Chicago Manual of Style is to not italicize train names. CMOS may be differentiating between physical ships with individual names and railroad route names, which is typically what is named when we think of trains; the specific grouping of train cars may not be named and may actually change from one trip to another. Locomotives, however, may have names. If they do, you would be safe to italicize that name.

While I understand this reasoning, I see no problem with italicizing a train’s (or a train route’s) commonly known name— Trans-Siberian Express , Royal Scotsman , California Zephyr —as writers have done in the past. This is strictly a personal opinion.

3. The definite article is unnecessary with ship names—they are names and not titles. So Yorktown rather than the Yorktown . It’s likely that characters with military backgrounds would follow this rule, but many civilians may not. If your character would say the Yorktown , then include the article.

Words as words:  As already noted, words used as words are usually italicized. This helps forestall confusion when these words are not used in the usual manner.

Examples : The word haberdashery has gone out of style.

Edith wasn’t sure what lugubrious meant, but it sounded slimy to her.

Letters as letters : Letters referred to as letters are italicized.

Examples : The i in my name is silent.

On the faded treasure map, an X actually did mark the spot.

All the men in his hometown have at least three s’ s in their names.

Notes: 1. Only the letter itself is italicized for plurals. So we have  s ’s, capital L s, and a dozen m’ s. (The apostrophe and concluding s are not italicized.)

2. An apostrophe is used for the plurals (lowercase letters only) to prevent confusion or the misreading of letters as words; a’ s rather than  a s and  i’ s rather than i s.

3. Familiar phrases including p’s and q’s and dot your i’s and cross your t’s do not require italics. (They are italicized here because I’m using them as words, not for their meaning.)

4. Letters for school grades are not italicized, though they are capitalized.

Sound words : Italicize words that stand in for sounds or reproduce sounds that characters and readers hear.

Examples : The whomp-whomp of helicopter blades drowned out her frail voice.

An annoying bzzz woke him.

C-r-rack ! Something heavy—some one  heavy—fell through the rotted floorboards.

Foreign words : Uncommon or unfamiliar foreign words are italicized the first time they are used in a story. After that, roman type is sufficient. Foreign-language words familiar to most readers do not need italics. Proper names and places in foreign languages are never italicized.

Examples : The words amigo , mucho ,  coup d’état, risqué, nyet, and others like them are common enough that you wouldn’t need to italicize them in fiction. (I italicized them because in my example they are words used as words.)

“Use caution, my dear. That pretty flower you like so much is velenoso. It slows the heart.”

It was something my grandmother always said to me.  Sie sind mein kostbares kleines Mädchen .

Building sites on the Potsdamer Platz went for a lot of money once the Berlin Wall came down.

Emphasis : Use italics to emphasize a word or part of a word. Yet don’t overdo. A character who emphasizes words all the time may sound odd. And the italics may annoy your readers.

Examples : I wanted a new dress, but I needed new shoes.

She quickly said, “It’s not what you think.”

“Sal invited everyone to the party at his uncle’s beach house. And I mean every single student  from his school.”

Something—some one —shattered all the street lights.

Character thoughts : Character thoughts can be expressed in multiple ways; italics is one of those ways. (But it isn’t the only way and may not be the best way. See “ How to Punctuate Character Thoughts ” for details.)

Example : I expected more from her , he thought. But he shouldn’t have.

You can find many more tips and suggestions for cleaning up your text in The Magic of Fiction .

Use Quotation Marks For

Titles :  As is done with titles and italics, titles of specific types of works are put inside quotation marks. This is true for both narration and dialogue.

book chapters (named, not numbered, chapters) TV show episodes radio show episodes songs short stories short poems (most poems) newspaper, magazine, and journal articles blog articles podcast episodes unpublished works (dissertations, manuscripts in collections)

Odds and Ends: Signs (and other notices) are typically not put in quotation marks or italicized, though they are capitalized—The back lot was marked with No Parking signs. They don’t even require hyphens for compounds—The gardener was putting up Do Not Walk on the Grass signs. However, long signs (think sentence length or longer)  are  put in quotation marks and not capitalized. Consider them as quotations—Did you see the handwritten sign? “Take your shoes off, line them up at the door, and walk without speaking to the second door on the left.”

The same rule applies for mottoes and maxims . An example: To Protect and Serve was the department’s old motto. Now it’s “Cover your tracks, lie if you get caught, blame your behavior on drugs, and vilify the victim.”

Examples : They read through “The Laurence Boy” in one sitting. (chapter three of Little Women )

He said he thought it was “The One With Phoebe’s Cookies.” (an episode of Friends )

My mother suggested we both read “The Gift of the Magi.” (short story)

“ The Princess Bride—Storytelling Done Right ” was written in two hours. (blog article)

Exception : Titles of regular columns in newspapers and magazines are not put in quotation marks (Dear Abby, At Wit’s End).

Dialogue : Enclose the spoken words of direct dialogue (not the dialogue tags or action beats) between opening and closing quotation marks. Do not use quotation marks for indirect dialogue.

Exception : When dialogue continues into a new paragraph, do not include a closing quotation mark at the end of the first paragraph; use the closing quotation mark only at the end of the spoken words. (If dialogue continues uninterrupted for several paragraphs, you will have a number of opening quotation marks but only one closing quotation mark.)

Examples : “I told you I loved you. You never believed me.”

“I told you I was there,” he said. But I never believed him.

“He tried,” I said, waving my fingers, “but he failed.”

“My dog ate the first page”—Billy pointed at Dexter Blue—“but I saved the rest.”

Exception Example : “I needed to do it, but I just couldn’t. And then you know what happened—Bing threw his knife and I ducked and he hit the minister’s wife. And then pandemonium broke out, everyone running every which way. It was madness.

“And after that, we raced out before the cops could get there.”

Notes: 1. American English (AmE) always uses double quotation marks for dialogue. If you have a quotation within dialogue, the inner quotation gets single quotation marks.

2. British English (BrE) allows for either single or double quotation marks, with the reverse for quotes inside other quotes or dialogue.

Words used in a nonstandard manner or as sarcasm, irony, or mockery : Use quotation marks to point out irony or words used in an unusual way, perhaps as slang or mockery. Most slang wouldn’t need to be put in quotation marks, but words unfamiliar to a character could be put in quotation marks. Always use double quotation marks for AmE and typically use singles for BrE (doubles are acceptable).

Example : Yeah, I guess he was on time. If three hours late is “on time” in his book.

Andy said his brother “skived off” two days this week. I didn’t tell him I had to check the Internet to figure out what he meant.

Made-up words or new words : Use quotation marks for the first use of made-up words. After that, no special punctuation is necessary.

Example : He’s a “rattlescallion,” a cross between a rapscallion and a snake.

Words as words : We often use italics for words used as words, but we can also use quotation marks.

Example: He used “I” all the time, as if his opinion carried more weight than anyone else’s.

 ________________________

When you’re deciding between italics and quotation marks, always remember the rules of clarity and consistency: make it clear for the reader and be consistent throughout the story. If you have to make a choice that doesn’t fit a rule or you choose to flout a rule, do so on purpose and do so each time the circumstances are the same. Include unusual words or special treatment of words in your style sheet  so everyone dealing with your manuscript works from the same foundation.

Rewrite any wording that is likely to confuse the reader or that can be read multiple ways. There’s always a way to clear up confusing phrasing, often more than one way. Reduce distracting punctuation and italics when you can, but use both quotation marks and italics when necessary.

Put writing rules to work for your stories.

This article is a long one, but I hope it proves useful. Let me know if I omitted a category you wondered about.

Related posts:

• Single Quotation Marks—A Reader’s Question
• Quotes Within Quotes
• Capitalizing on the Holidays—A Reader’s Question

Tags: capitalization , italics , quotation marks     Posted in: Grammar & Punctuation

Posted in Grammar & Punctuation

Leave a Reply

(Will Not Be Published) (Required)

Comments.....

Pings and Trackbacks

[…] In addition to dialogue, we use quotation marks for titles of many kinds, including songs, TV episodes, and newspaper and magazine articles. For the full list of titles we put in quotation marks, see Marking Text: Choosing Between Italics and Quotation Marks. […]

[…] Reblogged from The Editor’s Blog […]

[…] I knew there were some formatting issues in the text, such as how to show, inner thoughts, texts, quotes from other people, quotes from films or books, labels, signs, looks etc and I did some research to get some guidance. This link provided a lot of help.  https://theeditorsblog.net/2014/05/12/marking-text-choosing-between-italics-and-quotation-marks/ […]

• Valid XHTML

Great Links

• Development Blog
• Documentation
• Suggest Ideas
• Support Forum
• WordPress Planet

NaNo Support Page

available in paperback Reviews Here

So maybe it's not only about the words. It's about syntax. And plot. And action. It's voice and pacing and dialogue...

It's about characters with character.

It's about putting the words together to touch, to entertain, to move the reader.

So, yeah, maybe it's all about the words...

Expanded Version Now Available in a PDF

Buy your PDF copy today

Recent Posts

• Readers Notice and They Care
• Story Goal, Story Question, and the Protagonist’s Inner Need (Story Structure Part 1)
• The Blog is Back
• Get Skilled
• The Calendar Year Changes Again

WD Tutorial

Showing & Telling

Worth Visiting

♦ CMOS Hyphens

♦ Writer's Digest

♦ Preditors & Editors

♦ Nathan Bransford

♦ Thoughts Over Coffee

♦ Writer Beware

♦ Grammar Girl

♦ Etymology Dictionary

The reader will focus on what stands out. Turn the reader's attention where you want it to go.

• A Reader Asks…
• A Writer's Life
• Announcements
• Beginning Writers
• Beyond the Basics
• Beyond the Writing
• Craft & Style
• Definitions
• Editing Tips
• For Editors
• Genre Requirements
• Grammar & Punctuation
• Launch Week
• Member Events
• Recommendations
• Self-Publishing
• Site Business
• Story Structure
• Writing Challenge
• Writing Tips

Copyright © 2010-2018 E. A. Hill     Visit Beth at A Novel Edit Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

When to Use Italics in Your Writing

6-minute read

• 24th November 2019

Of all the typographic styles, italicization may look the most dynamic. Perhaps it’s the way the words slant to the right, as if striding confidently to a business meeting. Or perhaps we’re overthinking this. The point is that italics are a useful, versatile part of writing. But when should you use them?

Key occasions for using italics include:

• To emphasize something.
• For titles of standalone works, such as books and movies.
• For vehicle names, such as ships.
• To show that a word is borrowed from another language.
• For the Latin “scientific” names of plant and animal species.

Let’s take a look at each of these to see how they work in practice.

Italics for Emphasis

Like bold fonts or underlining, italics are often used for emphasis . This means we can use italics to stress or draw attention to a particular word or phrase:

Italicization is the best way to emphasize something.

Here, italicizing best shows that we feel strongly about italics.

Generally, italics are the standard form of emphasis in academic writing. This is because they look more formal than bold formatting . However, always check your style guide if your university or employer has one, since some organizations have different rules about emphasizing text.

Italics in Place of Quote Marks

It would be unusual to italicize a full quote rather than placing it in quote marks. However, some people do use italics to set single words apart in the same way you might with quotes. For example:

Quote Marks: The word “italic” comes from a Greek word meaning “Italy.”

Italics: The word italic comes from a Greek word meaning Italy .

As with emphasis, if you are using a style guide, you may want to check whether it allows this. Otherwise, though, italics can be helpful if using too many quote marks makes your writing look cluttered.

When to Use Italics for Titles

Another common use of italicization is for titles. Not your own headings – you can italicize these, but that’s a matter of stylistic preference – but the titles of published works, such as books. For instance, if we mentioned a work by Charles Dickens in an essay, we would write it like this:

Queen Victoria read The Old Curiosity Shop in 1841.

By using italics, we set the title text apart from the rest of the sentence.

It’s not just books that you should do this for. Typically, the same applies for any self-contained media product or publication (i.e., something published by itself rather than as part of a collection). This includes the titles of:

• Books and book-length poems
• Academic journals (i.e., the journal title itself, not individual article titles)
• Magazines and newspapers
• Movies, radio programs, and TV shows
• Plays and other stage shows
• Music albums and other published audio recordings
• Paintings, statues, and other works of art

Titles of shorter works, by comparison, are often placed in quotation marks . However, the rules for presenting titles do vary between style guides.

Italicizing Vehicle Names

You can use italics for the names of individual vehicles, such as a ship or space rocket. For instance, we would italicize the following vehicle names:

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

The sailors boarded the HMS Belfast in silence.

The Titanic sank during her maiden voyage.

Here, we italicize Belfast and Titanic because they’re the proper names of specific ships. We do not italicize the initials preceding names of ships (e.g., HMS, RMS, USS). In addition, you should only italicize the names of individual vehicles. If you’re writing the name of a brand or make of a vehicle (e.g., Ford Escort or Boeing 747), by comparison, you don’t need italics.

Italicizing Non-English Words

Make sure to italicize any non-English words you use in English-language writing. This shows the reader that the word was borrowed from another language. For instance, we could say:

In Germany, this feeling is known as Waldeinsamkeit .

The exact rules for when to italicize foreign words may vary depending on the style guide you check. For instance, most style guides make exceptions for words that are now fairly common in English even if they are still loanwords, so you would not usually need to italicize terms like “raison d’être.”

If in doubt, though, you can always check a good dictionary (e.g., the OED or Webster’s). Assuming you can find the word in the dictionary, it should be widely used enough in English to write without italics.

Italicizing Species Names

Binomial nomenclature (i.e., the Latin names given to plant and animal species) is usually italicized. For example, we could say:

Nobody wants Amorphophallus titanum growing in their garden.

As above, you should also capitalize the first word (i.e., the genus) in scientific plant and animal names, but not the second term (i.e., the species).

Other Uses for Italics

There are occasions when you may want to use italics not covered above. In fact, italics are useful for most situations where you need to make some part of a text distinct. One example comes from creative writing, where some people use italics to indicate an unspoken thought. For instance, we could use italics to show a character’s inner monologue:

Jeff sat silently in the doctor’s office. It wasn’t his usual doctor, so he was already nervous before the needle appeared.

“Don’t worry,” said the doctor. “It won’t hurt.”

Easy for you to say, Jeff thought. It’s not you at the sharp end of that thing. But he kept this to himself, instead uttering a meek “OK.”

However you use italics, though, there are two main rules to follow:

• Try not to use italics for too many different reasons in a single document. For instance, if you are writing something with a lot of titles and foreign words, you may want to find a different way of formatting emphasis.
• If you use italicized text for any part of a document, apply it consistently. So, for instance, if you’re using italics for loanwords in one part of an essay, you’ll want to do the same throughout the document.

And if you need anyone to check your use of italics in a document, our editors are here to help. Just submit your work for proofreading today.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Italics and Quotation Marks

Q. If a word is used as a word but presented in all caps (or small caps), should it still be italicized or set in quotation marks (per CMOS 7.66 )? For example: Fill in the squares with the letters that spell out BINGO. Or: Fill in the squares with the letters B, I, N, G, and O. In the latter case, the letters would be italicized. But putting the letters and the word in all caps and also italicizing them feels like overkill to me. It looks hideous. HELP!

A. Don’t worry, your editorial instincts align with ours. Capital letters, like italics and quotation marks, are very good at distinguishing a letter, word, or phrase from its surroundings. So unless you’re quoting from a specific source, please feel free to refer to the letters in bingo exactly as you’ve done in your question (both individually and when combined to form a word). Such an exception would be similar to the ones for the letter grades A–F (see CMOS 7.68 ) and the expression “the three R’s” (note the apostrophe; see 7.15  in the 18th ed. of CMOS ).

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

Q. I am the managing editor of a business journal. Many of the authors I edit put the word “learn” in quotation marks when it applies to AI. For example, “The algorithm can be trained to ‘learn’ how people interact.” Does CMOS approve of this usage, or does it prefer to allow AI to learn like the rest of us, free from quotation marks?

A. CMOS would approve (or rather its editors would), but only if the author needs to make a point about the nature of learning and isn’t simply trying to be clever, and provided the device isn’t overused (once is usually enough). A bit of editorial pushback along those lines might get your authors to drop the quotation marks. If that doesn’t work, you might remind them that it’s called artificial intelligence for a reason. Using so-called scare quotes around learn (or respond or any other word normally associated with living beings) would tend to belabor the obvious. (For more on scare quotes, see CMOS 7.57 .)

[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]

Q. If direct internal dialogue is set in italics, should the comma before the dialogue tag be set in italics or roman? CMOS 6.2 is very fuzzy on this. For example: “I lied, he thought, but maybe she will forgive me.” Imagine that the dialogue itself is set in italics. Should the first comma be italicized?

A. Good question! The comma after “lied” would be required both with the speaker tag (“I lied, he thought”) and without (“I lied, but maybe . . .”), so it could be said to belong to both the dialogue and the narrative. But adding quotation marks (as if the dialogue were speech) will suggest an answer:

“I lied,” he thought, “but maybe she will forgive me.”

I lied, he thought, but maybe she will forgive me.

The comma and period that are inside the closing quotation marks in the first version are in italics in the second version, whereas the comma after thought stays in roman. The difference is minuscule (without the bold for italics, would anyone notice?), and our solution is arbitrary. But it’s easy enough to understand and apply, so maybe we’ll make it a rule someday.

Q. Are reverse italics [i.e., roman text in an otherwise italic context] used when a legal case includes names of newspapers that would normally be italicized on their own? Thank you!

A. The name of a newspaper or other periodical would be italicized in the name of a court case—just like the name of any other entity. The Bluebook , a widely used citation guide that we recommend for citing court cases and the like (see CMOS 14.269 ), includes a relevant example: Seattle Times v. Univ. of Wash. (see section B10.1.1 in the 21st ed. of The Bluebook [2020]).

That Bluebook example is intended to illustrate two principles: (1) an initial The in the name of a party to a cited case can be omitted (a rule that applies to both names in the Seattle Times case), and (2) abbreviations can be used for certain terms, including state names and words like “University.”

And though that example isn’t supposed to show the use of italics for case names (which in Bluebook usage depends on context), it does suggest that a newspaper name within the name of a court case doesn’t merit any special typographic treatment. That’s probably because the name “Seattle Times” is, in this context, that of a publishing company rather than a publication (publications don’t argue cases, but their publishers do).

Q. Hello, I’m wondering how to style the name of a television program that has been assimilated into the cultural lexicon so that references to it are not truly references to the show. In particular, an author said, “When I landed at the airport, it was as if I had entered the Twilight Zone.” (He makes many references to this.) I feel it should be capitalized but not italicized, but I can’t find anything to say one way or another. Can you help? Thanks!

A. In your example, you’re right—the reference isn’t to the television show; rather, it’s to the fictional realm made famous by the show. So we agree with your treatment. Had your example been worded instead as follows, italics (and a capital T for The ) would have been correct: “When I landed at the airport, it was as if I had arrived on the set of The Twilight Zone .”

Q. Would you italicize “x” in a phrase like “x number of dollars”? It seems like a variable, but I wasn’t sure if this casual use merited italics.

A. When an ordinary expression is borrowed from a specialized discipline like math, any basic convention that would be recognized by nonspecialists can often be retained, even in casual usage. For example, Chicago style is to italicize the n in “ n th degree” (see CMOS 9.6 ); by extension, we would write “ x number of dollars” (with the letter x in italics). As you suggest, these letters act like variables, which in math are usually italicized.

Another approach that’s common in published works is to use a capital X (normally without italics): “X number of dollars.” A capital X can stand in for anything that’s unknown or mysterious in some way—as in “X factor” or “X marks the spot”—and it’s arguably easier to read than a lowercase x . But either choice should work well as long as you’re consistent.

Q. Should sounds made by animals or objects be italicized when they aren’t part of dialogue (e.g., “quack,” “choo choo,” etc.)?

A. Though not required, such italics might have their place. Italics are common in fiction for unspoken discourse (as for a narrator’s thoughts). Such italics signal to readers that the words come from somewhere other than the narrative or dialogue. Consider also the convention used by many video captioners of italicizing words spoken off-screen. Meow. (Sorry, our editorial assistant must be hungry again.) If you do end up deciding that italics would work for you, try not to overuse them.

Q. Should the common name of a species from a non-English language be treated as a foreign word and italicized, or should it be left in roman type? I’m thinking of the bird known as a po‘ouli in Hawaii, which is elsewhere called the black-faced honeycreeper. Should po‘ouli be italicized?

A. Though it’s not listed in Merriam-Webster (as of July 5, 2022), the name po‘ouli seems to be relatively well established in recent English-language publications that discuss that bird ( sadly reported extinct in 2021 ); in fact, a Google search for “black-faced honeycreeper” brings up “po‘ouli” first, suggesting it’s more common now than the common English name. So you shouldn’t need italics to refer to a po‘ouli except when using the name as a word (as in the first sentence above and the last sentence in your question).

But if you were to refer to, for example, a Deutscher Schäferhund —the German name for a German shepherd—italics would help signal that the German name would not normally be used in an English-language context (except, for example, to let readers know what that name is).

In sum, sometimes it’s necessary to go beyond the dictionary as a rough gauge of a term’s familiarity in English contexts. For the glottal stop (or ‘okina ) in po‘ouli , see CMOS 11.70 (under “Hawaiian”). For advice on capitalizing dog breeds, see this Q&A .

Q. Robots are being named and even developing personalities, not just in fiction, but in the real world. Should their names be italicized—i.e., “I told Benjamin to wait at the coffee shop,” where Benjamin is a robot with artificial intelligence?

A. Italics for robot names could be fun in fiction; however, that doesn’t seem to be the convention either in fiction or in real life. (An exception is generally made for named spacecraft and the like, including the robotic Mars rover Perseverance ; see CMOS 8.116 .) Before you decide what to do, consider asking some robots to weigh in.

Q. Should the apostrophe in an italicized word in possessive plural form be italicized? Example: If I italicize the possessive form of the word pirates , would the apostrophe also be italicized?

A. That depends. If you’re referring to the plural possessive form of the word pirates as a word, then italicize the whole thing, including the apostrophe: pirates’ . But if you’re using italics for emphasis, leave the apostrophe in regular text. For example, “It was the pirates ’ ship, not mine, that sank.”

The difference, however, between ’ and ’ will go unnoticed by most readers—even those of us who scrutinize such things for a living—so let’s switch to the singular to confirm our choices. To refer to the possessive pirate’s as a word, you’d put the whole thing in italics (as it is styled in this sentence). But for emphasis—that is, to single out the pirate ’s ship as opposed to some other ship—italics are best reserved for pirate alone (as styled in this sentence, between the dashes). Even in the singular, this is an extremely fine distinction that will go unnoticed by many. But it recognizes that the possessive ending can be considered independently of the word to which it attaches, as “belonging to” would be in “the ship belonging to the pirate .” That final period, in case you’re wondering, isn’t in italics.

For italics for emphasis, see CMOS 7.50 ; for words used as words, see CMOS 7.63 .

SHOP TALK BLOG! CMOS editors share writing tips, editing ideas, interviews, quizzes, and more!

TOME SWEET TOME! 1,192 crisp, new pages bound in orange, wrapped in yellow, and brimming with style ♡

NEW! The CSE Manual, 9th Edition, the Scientific Companion to The Chicago Manual of Style

NEW! The Design of Books, An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers, by Debbie Berne

NEW! The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability, by Erin Brenner

The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction, by Amy J. Schneider

Developmental Editing, 2nd Edition: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers, by Scott Norton

NEW! Indexes: A Chapter from “The Chicago Manual of Style,” 18th Edition

NEW! The Craft of Research, 5th Edition: A thoroughly updated edition of a beloved classic

The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, 2nd Edition

Information Now, 2nd Edition A Graphic Guide to Student Research and Web Literacy

Shop the CMOS Bookstore! Writing, Editing, and Publishing Books from CHICAGO