Let’s talk about how to capitalize your title when writing a paper. It’s not terribly complicated, but it can be a bit confusing. If you have picked up any newspaper or looked at (some, not all) a video on Youtube, you’ll see that something isn’t quite right about titles. Newspapers and some online videos tend to capitalize the first letter of the title, proper nouns (for the most part), and the first letter after any colon used in the title. That’s it. The usual formatting for news articles is AP, and tends to write titles as a sentence. That is not the case with academic writing. Seriously! See the “rule” (which may change as the formatting styles update) and an example below.
APA
My personal favorite formatting style uses title casing. So, only minor words in a title should be lowercase. Keep in mind that it gets more complicated when you use headers, table titles, subheadings, etc. Click here to read more. Note that in APA articles (i.e., the), short prepositions (i.e., to) and conjunctions (i.e., and) are not capitalized unless they are at the beginning of a sentence or right after a colon in the title.
Example: Biology Professor at WKU Speaks out on Environmental Issues
MLA
This formatting style is used primarily for people who are in English and other arts-related areas. You are in luck! MLA titles use standard capitalization, which is like APA. For example, note the preposition, article, and conjunction in the following title.
Example: Students Going out to the Ballgame and Dance is Exciting!
Final Thoughts
This article only covers the main titles of research papers and reports. If you are publishing in a professional journal, check the publisher for specific rules – they may differ. Both MLA and APA require capitalization after a colon in a title, regardless of what the word is after it. Think of it as starting a new title. In addition to the above advice, always capitalize proper nouns in titles, and you should be good to go. Note that there are always exceptions to capitalization rules (okay, may not always). For college students, high school students, and others, check with instructors to ensure they are not using variations in your formatting styles. It is not unheard of for an instructor to tell students to use MLA or APA and add a “but” at the end because they have a personal preference about something. So, double-check. Other than that, capitalizing your title in your essay or report is easy as pie!
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