What is title case?
Title case is a capitalization style for titles and headings in which the important words start with a capital letter and minor words stay lowercase: The Lord of the Rings, How to Train Your Dragon. It's used for book and film titles, article headlines and, in many organizations, headings in reports.
The alternative is sentence case, where only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized: How to train your dragon. Many news sites, government websites and apps use sentence case for headings because it's easier to read.
The rules every style agrees on
- Capitalize the first word of the title, and the first word of a subtitle after a colon.
- Capitalize nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, however short: Is, Be, It, His, Go.
- Lowercase the articles a, an and the unless they come first.
- Lowercase short coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, nor.
Where the styles differ
The main disagreement is about prepositions (words like of, from, with, through, about).
| Style | Who uses it | Prepositions and conjunctions |
|---|---|---|
| AP | News, PR, many blogs | Capitalize words of four letters or more (From, With, About). Lowercase those of three letters or fewer (of, for, to, in). |
| APA | Psychology, social sciences, education | Same idea as AP: capitalize words of four letters or more, lowercase short minor words. |
| Chicago | Book publishing, history, humanities | Lowercase all prepositions regardless of length (from, through, between), except when used as adverbs or adjectives. |
| MLA | Literature, languages, humanities | Like Chicago: lowercase all prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, and to in infinitives. |
One title, four styles
| Style | Result |
|---|---|
| AP | The Benefits of Working From Home During the Winter |
| APA | The Benefits of Working From Home During the Winter |
| Chicago | The Benefits of Working from Home during the Winter |
| MLA | The Benefits of Working from Home during the Winter |
Tricky cases
The last word
AP, Chicago and MLA always capitalize the last word, even if it's a short preposition: What Are You Looking For? APA doesn't make a special exception, but in practice the last word is usually a major word anyway.
Phrasal verbs
In Set Up, Log In or Turn Off, the second word is part of the verb, not a preposition, so it's capitalized in every style: How to Set Up Your Router.
Hyphenated words
Most styles capitalize both parts of a hyphenated compound: Long-Term Plans, Self-Driving Cars. Chicago lowercases the second part if it's an article, preposition or conjunction (Out-of-Pocket Costs).
Words after a colon
Capitalize the first word after a colon in a title: Remote Work: The Complete Guide.
Acronyms and brand names
Keep acronyms and brand names exactly as they're normally written: NASA, iPhone, eBay.
Quick reference: words that are usually lowercase
Articles: a, an, the. Short conjunctions: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet. Short prepositions: as, at, by, for, in, of, off, on, per, to, up, via. In Chicago and MLA style, add every longer preposition too: about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, before, behind, below, between, during, except, from, into, like, near, over, past, since, through, toward, under, until, upon, with, within, without.
Which style should you use?
If your school, publisher or company has a style guide, follow it. If not, pick one and apply it consistently. AP style is a sensible default for blogs and marketing because it's simple: capitalize everything of four letters or more. Mixing styles within one document looks careless, so check every heading against the same rules.
The title case converter applies these rules automatically. Its smart mode follows the AP and APA approach, keeping articles, short conjunctions and short prepositions lowercase. Prefer sentence case? Use the sentence case converter.