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Contributor: Jennifer Blanchard. Lesson ID: 13680
Some people say they prefer math to ELA because there are a lot of straightforward rules. Well, there are simple rules in ELA too! This lesson will show you some formatting "rules" for titles!
The rules for formatting titles are as straightforward as the addition rule that makes 2 + 2 always equal 4.
However, unlike math, grammar rules can sometimes change.
Jot down your thoughts before continuing to see if you were right!
In this lesson, you will learn how to format titles.
Understanding these rules will help you recognize titles in writing and help you properly format your own writing so that others recognize titles within it.
Think about how someone would have utilized italics before computers. That would be hard to replicate solely through handwriting. As computers became more common, the rules for formatting titles shifted.
But don't worry. What you learn in this lesson should stay consistent for a long, long time!
The first step when formatting a title is to determine whether it is a full work or a short work:
| Full Work | Short Work | |||
| Type | Type | |||
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Then, apply the appropriate formatting rule:
| Full Work | Short Work | |||
| Rule | Rule | |||
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Choose one or the other. Never do both! |
If the name of a book series is italicized, each individual book would be put in quotation marks |
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Italics are used most often when typing. |
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Take a look at some examples:
| Full Work | Short Work | |||
| Example | Example | |||
A very popular book is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. |
For our literature class, we had to read "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. |
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My grandpa has received his copy of The New York Times for over 30 years. |
Have you heard of the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe? |
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The latest fashion trends can be found in Vogue. |
Out of that whole book, "What Happened Next?" was my favorite chapter. |
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Archives of Internal Medicine is most likely a popular journal among doctors. |
"Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison is a song you hear at many celebrations! |
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Back in the '90s, one of my first CDs was Middle of Nowhere by Hanson. |
My mom's favorite Friends episode is "The One with All the Thanksgivings". |
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Romeo and Juliet is a classic that many people enjoy seeing at the theater. |
In the magazine Bon Appetit, there's an article titled "There's an Entire Industry Dedicated to Making Foods Crispy, and It Is WILD". |
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Have you ever seen the show Full House? It has a sequel on Netflix. |
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One of my cousin's favorite movies is Finding Nemo. |
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Whew!
Here are a few more things to keep in mind:
You would abbreviate a title if it was very long and you were referring to it multiple times in your writing.
For example, you could choose to abbreviate The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Huckleberry Finn.
If the punctuation is part of the title, include it in the italics or quotation marks.
If the punctuation is not part of the title, make sure it's outside of the italics or quotation marks.
For example: Her favorite article is "Have You Seen the Wind?".
In that case, the question mark is part of the title, so it goes inside the quotation marks.
If you were asking a question and the question mark is not part of the title, it would look like this: Have you seen "Gone With the Wind"?
Seems pretty easy!
Click through to the Got It? section for more examples and some practice!
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