The guidelines for capitalizing titles vary and can be confusing. Different publications have different rules on which words to Capitalize in titles. However, the following are some general guidelines you can use if you are not required to use a specific style guide.
When writing titles for articles, books, essays, magazines, and plays, capitalize the following parts of speech.
Adverbs (often, sometimes, elegantly, safely, only, weekly)
Adjectives (stellar, splendid, great, ultimate, devoted, clever)
Nouns (dragon, cats, family, team, sympathy, Berlin, Colombia)
Pronouns (she, they, I, him, us, mine, yours, nobody, anyone)
Verbs (allow, brush, comment, dig, earn, fly, gaze)
Examples:
- How to Drive Safely
- Land of Dragons
- Fantastic Tales of Horror
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- What Makes Us Happy?
Do not capitalize the following parts of speech unless they begin or end the title.
Articles (a, an, the)
Conjunctions (and, as, but, for, nor, or , after, because, until)
Prepositions (before, into, from, by, with, near, between, over)
to of infinitives (to Help, to Talk, to Leave, to Take, to Study)
Examples:
- How to Agree to Disagree
- Rise of the Philosophy King (The Rise of the Philosophy King)
- Causes of Midlife Crisis (The Causes of Midlife Crisis)
- How to Talk to Elephants
- To Kill a Mocking Bird
Capitalize the first word following a colon.
Examples:
- The Epidemic: Ten Essays on Mental Health
- Reading Books: The Power of Habit
Capitalize hyphenated compound words.
Examples:
- How to Operate a Part-Time Business
- Tomas the Middle-Aged Clown
If you find the Capitalization rules confusing use the sentence case approach to Write your titles. In other words, write your title the same way you would write a sentence: capitalize the first word. Remember to start all proper nouns with a capital letter.
Examples:
- The origin of laughter
- Days of war
