Capitalizing Titles

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CAPITALIZING FORMATTING TITLES • In today's lesson, Kevin teaches you how to properly capitalize and format titles (books, movies, poems, etc.). • NOTE: In the final example of the lesson, the word is should technically be capitalized, according to most style guides. I tend to make exceptions for linking verbs because I think they look really awkward when you capitalize them (especially when they're written next to equally short words that aren't capitalized). And this brings up an important point. THERE ARE NO ACTUAL RULES FOR TITLES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; there are just recommendations. APA, Chicago, and MLA are some of the most popular style guides, and they recommend that you capitalize all verbs, all the time, no matter what. So if you were following one of those, you would capitalize is. But those aren't the only styles; there are tons--and they're all very different. Some styles capitalize all words--every single one! Some styles only capitalize words that would be capitalized in a sentence. (You see this a lot with news articles.) And even the most popular style guides disagree about oddly specific things. APA, for example, recommends that you capitalize all prepositions longer than four words (like between ), but Chicago says not to do that. In other words, pretty much anything is possible. The important part is consistency. If you're writing for school, stick to the style your teacher or professor has assigned; if you're writing for any other purpose, just be consistent. • -- FREE PRACTICE BELOW -- • DIRECTIONS: Rewrite the following titles so that they are formatted and capitalized correctly. • 1. big fish (novel) • 2. henry’s secret (play) • 3. ghost on the lawn (song) • 4. how to play the guitar (article) • 5. the evening sun (painting) • 6. on the wings of an angel (movie) • 7. the adventures of mary sue (short story) • 8. the battle of west ridge (TV episode) • 9. a sunny evening in Jackson (poem) • 10. on a boat by the sea (novel) • ANSWERS: • 1. Big Fish (italicized or underlined) • 2. Henry’s Secret (italicized or underlined) • 3. “Ghost on the Lawn” • 4. “How to Play the Guitar” • 5. The Evening Sun (italicized or underlined) • 6. On the Wings of an Angel (italicized or underlined) • 7. “The Adventures of Mary Sue” • 8. “The Battle of West Ridge” • 9. “A Sunny Evening in Jackson” • 10. On a Boat by the Sea (italicized or underlined) • INSTAGRAM: / spaanske • LIKE | COMMENT | SHARE | SUBSCRIBE • #education • #englishgrammar • #grammar

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