Do You Italicize Book Titles? Essay Secrets Revealed

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When you’re writing an academic paper or writing in a professional setting, you want to make sure your grammar and style meet required expectations. There may be a chance that you are writing about a book you have read or citing sources in a research paper. If you’ve ever wondered things like, “do you italicize book titles or underline them?” or “how can I quote shorter work pieces correctly?” then read on!

We’ll give you all the details on when it’s okay to use italics, plus how to emphasize other types of reference material.

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Do you italicize book titles?

The general rule is to use italics for long papers and citations for short papers.

but depending on the format you must adhere to, the rules may vary. For example, you may be instructed to write according to the APA, MLA, or Chicago manual of style. you must follow the rules dictated by the guidelines.

writing formats

• modern language association (mla): used in arts and humanities
• american psychological association (apa): used in science social
• associated press (ap) style book: used for magazines, newspapers and the internet
• chicago style manual (chicago ): used from publishing to science, one of the most popular styles

for mla, apa and chicago manual of style, you should use italics for long papers and citations for short papers.

for the ap style, however, never use italics for workpieces, regardless of length. furthermore, apa style also does not use quotation marks or italics for shorter works. instead, it expects them to be written as normal text.

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Sometimes the choice of style can be up to you as the writer. if that’s the case, then it’s best to maintain consistency throughout your work by using italics, underlining, and quotation marks.

short works: how to emphasize titles of shorter works

When you refer to the title of an article or book chapter, you should not italicize it. instead, you can use quotation marks to emphasize these smaller jobs. this is the same rule for show episode titles.

Is punctuation in titles italicized?

When a paper includes punctuation, such as a question mark, for example, that part of the title should also be italicized. For example, you would write: “I love the book, oh the places you will go! by Dr. seuss.”

however, when you are writing and italicizing a sentence for emphasis or within parentheses, then punctuation is not italicized.

exceptions to emphasize titles

As with most aspects of English, there are some exceptions to the rule. One exception is when you have a book that is a collection of multiple novel titles, such as Lord of the Rings. in this case, I would put the title of the specific books in quotes, but keep the title of the collection in italics.

Also, when the word “the” is part of a title, it is not italicized. for example, it is correct to write the new york times.

how to capitalize properly

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titles have special formatting and capitalization rules. for example, capitalize only the first word and all main words in a title.

Do not capitalize articles such as “a”, “a” or “the”. for example, you would write: war and peace instead of war and peace.

when to use quotes instead

There are very specific cases where you should choose to use quotation marks for titles of works instead of italics. use quotes for:

• poems
• articles in newspapers or magazines
• songs
• stories
• book chapters
• TV episodes

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

examples of the correct use of italics

here is a list of examples to help as a reference:

• dawn of the planet of the apes (movie title, note articles are in lowercase)
• the cat in the hat (book title)
• “mary had a little lamb” (song title)
• “how pandemics end” (article title)
• the new york times (newspaper title)
• “the tell-tale heart” (a short story)

final thoughts

Knowing when to italicize or use quotes is not a single answer. may depend on the script format you have been instructed to type in.

However, a general rule to follow is that longer works, such as books, require italics, while shorter works, such as poems or articles, will be enclosed in quotation marks.

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