What is the correct way to identify titles of books in citations?

There was a time when we didn’t have extensive formatting options for typed documents. Today, writers use underlining, italics, bold text, and quotation marks to emphasize certain words. The words that often get emphasized are names of ships or planes, words used as themselves, foreign words, and titles of books, movies, songs, and other titled works.

Italics and quotation marks are used today to emphasize titles of works such as books, poems, short stories, and articles. Different style guides have different standards for italics and quotation marks, so you’ll need to learn which to use.

Shorter Works:

The first poem in the book is called “Athena’s Birth.”

Here’s an anthology: find the story called “The Sky and the Sea.”

Longer Works:

Have you read To Kill a Mockingbird?

Her dissertation is titled Feminism in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.

Titles of full works like books or newspapers should be italicized.

Titles of short works like poems, articles, short stories, or chapters should be put in quotation marks.

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.

How to Emphasize Book Titles

The way you format titles isn’t really governed by grammar rules. It’s a matter of style. If you want to, you can emphasize whatever you want, however you want—but that could make your writing nearly unreadable. Consistency is also very important for emphasis, which is why businesses, institutions, and publications look to style guides.

Book titles are usually put in the same category as other big, standalone, or complete bodies of work like newspapers, symphonies, or publications. Style guides that prescribe the use of italics, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or the AMA Manual of Style, say that titles of such works should be put into italics when appearing in text.

Some writers still use underlining if italicizing is not an option, but generally it’s considered outdated. You should also note that these guidelines apply to titles that appear in a text and are surrounded by other words. Titles at the top of the page or on the front cover don’t require italics or underlining. Their separation from the rest of the text is already enough to get the reader’s attention. You don’t have to italicize the title of your thesis, for example, when it appears on the cover.

How to Emphasize Titles of Smaller Pieces of Work

Let’s say you want to write the title of an article or book chapter. Should you italicize it? For shorter pieces of work or works that don’t stand alone but are part of a greater whole, you should use quotation marks. See the examples below:

Did you read that newspaper article “Shark Eats Man”?

One of Robert Frost’s most famous poems is “Mending Wall.”

Punctuating Titles

Punctuating titles can cause trouble for some writers, but the rule is actually quite simple: If the punctuation is part of the title, include it in the italics or quotation marks. If it’s not part of the title, make sure it’s outside the italics or quotation marks.

Cathy’s favorite book is Who Has Seen the Wind?

Have you been to the theater to see Romeo and Juliet?

In the first sentence, the title itself is a question, so the question mark is italicized as part of the title. In the second sentence, however, the title is not a question; rather, the sentence as a whole is a question. Therefore, the question mark is not italicized.

Exceptions for Emphasizing Titles

The rules for emphasizing titles may seem straightforward, but there are exceptions. What happens if you have more than one title, for instance? If you have, say, a collection of novels in one book (let’s take, for example, all three Lord of the Rings books in one handy paperback), the title of the collection would be italicized or underlined, and the titles of the three books would then be put in quotation marks.

Note that if the title contains ending punctuation marks, those should be included within the quotation marks. If a punctuation mark is used in the sentence containing a title, periods and commas should go inside the ending quotation mark, while question marks and exclamation points should go outside the ending quotation mark.

Lord of the Rings is a very large book. I made it through “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers,” but I was dying of boredom by the time I got to “The Return of the King.”

If you have two titles in one sentence (for example, a book title and a chapter title), the title of the larger work should be italicized, and the smaller work should be in quotation marks. See the example below:

In Little Women, Beth March dies in Chapter 40, “The Valley of the Shadow.”

You would also do this with episodes from TV shows:

My favorite Seinfeld episode is “The Puffy Shirt.”

Up for some exercise? See if you can emphasize the titles in the following sentences!

I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe over the summer.

Have you read Humble Origins to Classic Footwear, Espadrilles Endure on the Newsweek website?

Is Paradise Lost a poem?

The final part of Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, was my favorite.

You only get so much information about Harry from reading A Boy Who Lived.

A Boy Who Lived is the first chapter of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Before computers, we used typewriters to underline book titles, and we placed quotation marks around article titles. However, many current style manuals recommend italicizing book titles and magazine names (impossible to do on a typewriter) and using quotation marks around articles.

Example: I read Lord of the Flies in high school.

Example: I enjoyed reading “Become Your Own Best Friend” in Newsweek.

Pop Quiz
Choose the correct sentence.

1A. My brother thought the “New York Times” article Homeless Team Roots for a New Life Through Soccer was fascinating.
1B. My brother thought the New York Times article “Homeless Team Roots for a New Life Through Soccer” was fascinating.

2A. “Light Meals for Nibblers” is a chapter in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks.
2B. Light Meals for Nibblers is a chapter in “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest,” one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks.

3A. I remember reading “The Catcher in the Rye” when I was a teenager.
3B. I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager.

Pop Quiz Answers
1B. My brother thought the New York Times article “Homeless Team Roots for a New Life Through Soccer” was fascinating.
2A. “Light Meals for Nibblers” is a chapter in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks.
3B. I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager.

If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.

Prior to computers, people were taught to underline titles of books and plays and to surround chapters, articles, songs, and other shorter works in quotation marks. However, here is what The Chicago Manual of Style says: When quoted in text or listed in a bibliography, titles of books, journals, plays, and other freestanding works are italicized; titles of articles, chapters, and other shorter works are set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks.

Below are some examples to help you:

Example: We read A Separate Peace in class. (title of a book)

Example: That Time magazine article, “Your Brain on Drugs,” was fascinating.
Note that the word “magazine” was not italicized because that is not part of the actual name of the publication.

Example: His article, “Death by Dessert,” appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

Note that the and magazine are both capitalized and set off because the name of the publication is The New York Times Magazine.

Newspapers, which follow The Associated Press Stylebook, have their own sets of rules because italics cannot be sent through AP computers.

If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.

Title of a television series? Italics. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003.

Episode of a television series? Quotation marks. 

"Hush." Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1999.

A web site? Italics.

Hollmichel, Stefanie. So Many Books. 2003-13, somanybooksblog.com.

A posting or an article at a web site? Quotation marks.

Hollmichel, Stefanie. "The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.

A song or other piece of music on an album? Quotation marks.

Beyoncé. "Pretty Hurts." Beyoncé, Parkwood Entertainment, 2013, www.beyonce.com/album/beyonce/?media_view=songs.

Learn more about styling titles in the MLA Handbook Ninth ed. on pp. 66-73.