How To Write Book Titles
Italicize book titles in the text of your paper.
How to write book titles. Secondly if you don t already think of the title of your book as a marketing decision start now. If you are using mla style you should not underline book titles. However ap style the guide used by journalists suggests putting titles in quotation marks not italicization. Instead italicize the titles. To encourage the reader to interact with your book your title should try to hint at the book s genre give readers a whiff of the story that follows and provoke curiosity.
On an apa reference paper the rules are different from those used in mla and chicago. Your fiction title has done its job when it makes a prospective reader want to pick up your book or click on the title to take a peek inside. Titles of short works like poems articles short stories or chapters should be put in quotation marks. Having a title in place before you start writing can help inform or reinforce your themes and motifs as you plan your novel. For example breakfast at tiffany s by truman capote to the lighthouse by virginia woolf a river runs through it and other stories by norman maclean lord of the flies by william gerald golding etc.
There are also several different methods of capitalizing titles. To learn one way to capitalize titles read this article. Quotation marks for shorter works such as poems and articles. Titles of full works like books or newspapers should be italicized. Designate a book title as separate from the rest of your text by placing the complete title and subtitle if it has one in italics.
As earlier mentioned the style used to write a title of a book vary based on the referencing style of the paper i e apa mla or chicago. In contrast shorter articles essays or chapters within the book are enclosed in quotation marks. Still i wouldn t recommend underlining a book s title. To learn more about the planning process go here for a complete guide and a free book outline template. Titles of books that form a larger body of work may be put in quotation marks if the name of the book series is italicized.
Italics for longer works such as books 2. Rules for writing a book title in apa capitalization. These methods do not always agree. Each word in the title of the book should be written with a capitalized letter except prepositions like at of in on etc.