Rules for Capitalization in a Title

By Jon Henshaw

At the beginning of this year, I wrote an entry on the AP Style for Internet and Information Technology Terms. I stated that:

Starting in 2010 I’m going to lay down arms and accept the media status quo–at least as tech industry spellings are concerned. At this point, I think it’s more harmful than helpful to spell those words differently, and I want articles I write for my sites to be as media friendly as possible.

Another writing problem I’ve faced is title capitalization. I’ve always struggled with the capitalization rules for titles. However, with the onset of frequent blogging, it seems like there’s no better time than now to learn what the rules are for title capitalization. I’ve put together a collection of rules from different resources. Hopefully this will help you as much as it’s helped me.

Capitalization Rules for Titles

Always Capitalize

  • First and Last word (even Articles)
  • Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, and Adjectives
  • Any Conjunction or Preposition with five letters or more

Never Capitalize

  • Articles like the, a, and an
  • Prepositions and Conjunctions that are four letters or less

Capitalization Examples

Two-Letter Words

Go Tell it on the Mountain
(wrong; “it” is a pronoun and should be capitalized)

When is a Spade a Spade?
(wrong; “is” is a verb and should be capitalized)

Multipurpose Words

The Man in the Moon Owns a Yellow Balloon
(correct; “in” is functioning as a preposition and should be lowercased)

Bringing in the Sheaves
(wrong; “in” is functioning as an adverb and should be capitalized)

Phrasal Verbs

My Travels up Nova Scotia’s South Shore
(correct; “up” is functioning as a preposition and should be lowercased)

Setting up Your Computer
(wrong; “up” is functioning as a particle and should be capitalized)

Mistaken Notions

The Time of their Lives
(wrong; “their” is an adjective and should be capitalized—the writer probably extrapolated from “the”)

References

Jon Henshaw

Spending entirely too much time on the Internet