Arts >> Books >> Authors

How to Write an MLA Title

Titles are a written work's job interview. A good title is that work's first and perhaps only chance to make a good impression. For this reason, the formatting, capitalization and punctuation you use when citing a work in your research paper is important. The Modern Language Association of America offers specific guidelines you can use when preparing a research paper. Follow MLA guidelines when citing the titles of works you use in your research.

Instructions

    • 1

      Capitalize the first word, the last word, all principal words and words following a hyphen in your MLA title. For example, The Dismal Lives of Teenage Envelope-Stuffers.

    • 2

      Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the, for example) or prepositions (in, of, to, between, toward, for example) in the middle of a title. For example, I Saw the Light in Peru.

    • 3

      Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions (but, for, and, yet, for example) or the "to" in infinitives in the middle of a title. For example, How to Emphasize the Critical Continuities of King Lear and Captain America.

    • 4

      Separate a title and a subtitle with a colon and a space. For example, Divergent Dieresis: The Fundamentals of Vowel Delineation.

    • 5

      Italicize the names of books, periodicals, plays, websites, files, TV and radio broadcasts, CDs, long musical compositions, ships, aircraft and works of art. Examples of these include Gone with the Wind; Wall Street Journal; The Tempest; Pastoral Symphony (Beethoven's symphony); Star Trek (TV broadcast); USS Maine (do not capitalize "USS"); The Spirit of St. Louis; and Guernica (Pablo Picasso's painting).

    • 6

      Use quotations marks around the titles of articles, stories, poems, essays, book chapters, songs and TV or radio broadcast episodes. Examples of these include "Literature and Cupcakes" (article); "The Artificial Nigger" (short story); "The Waste Land" (poem); "On Being Blue" (essay); and "What Is Love?" (song).

Authors

Related Categories