Use quotation marks around the titles of books, songs, television shows, computer. If an article the, a, an is the first or last word in a title, capitalize it. First, it is important to note that there are four main title capitalization styles. Ap style title case has a few easy rules that will help showcase your title. Grammar handbooks vary a bit on their capitalization rules, but the ones in the ap stylebook provide a good foundation.
Lowercase and spell out when not used with an individual name. The lieutenant governor, gavin newsom, was serving in the. In general, capitalize formal titles used directly before a name. Formal titles in ap style should be capitalized when they immediately precede one or more names. When a title stands alone or is offset from a name by commas, it should be lowercase. Finally, capitalize every word that is more than three letters long. Ap style book titles to kill a mockingbird the magicians nephew of mice and men ap style movie titles saving private ryan trouble with the curve the dark knight rises ap style song titles stairway to heaven hey jude good vibrations. I cant figure out whenwhy ap uses quote marks around book titles but chicagostyle doesnt. Courtesy and professional titles professional and honorary titles capitalize brief titles when used before the individuals name. Ap style holds that formal titles should be capitalized when they appear directly in front of one or more names. Heres what the ap stylebook says about when to capitalize names. Keep title capitalization simple, avoid apnewsstyle. The 2019 edition of the associated press stylebook and briefing on media law includes more than 200 new or revised entries, with chapters covering data journalism, business, fashion, food, religion and sports terms, as well as media law, news values, punctuation, social media, polls and surveys and a new chapter on health and science. Title case is a style that is traditionally used for the titles of books, movies, songs, plays, and other works.
As for enclosing titles in quotation marks or italicizing them, you can get pretty far by following the bigheavy equals italics like books and smalllight equals quotes like poems generalizations, but associated press style doesnt italicize nothin and chicago style has layers of specificity and ifthen statements. Chapter sixteen brights, followups, roundups, sidebars and obituaries. Never capitalize job descriptions shortstop, police officer, attorney and so on. According to brandeis university, the ap stylebook says that composition titles books, works of art, song titles, magazine titles, etc. All you need to know about titles in ap style gatehouse newsroom.
When you write titles that contain prepositions, your word processor will likely tell you. Ap style also aims to avoid stereotypes and unintentionally offensive language. Below are a number of examples for composition titles in ap style. Never capitalize titles used after the name or titles that stand alone.
Unlike other stylebooks, the associated press does not italicize words. The associated press stylebook provides an az guide to issues such as capitalization, abbreviation, punctuation, spelling, numerals and many other questions of language usage. For example, the reverend bill graham has met with many presidents. Title case is often used for headlines as well, for example, in newspapers, essays, and blogs, and is therefore also known as headline style. Spiralbound book, updated each spring 2019 ap stylebook. What follows are summaries of some of the most common style rules.