MECHANICS
Titles
T: titles require either italics, quotation marks, or no punctuation.
Do not just change the punctuation; state which of the rules below applies (for example, “Use quotation marks for titles of short stories”).
For rules on formatting your title, see MFT, For rules on writing your title, see ET (and the accompanying Extra Help box) and/or LT.
PUNCTUATING TITLES
ITALICS
Full-length works, collections
Novels: War and Peace
Long poems: The Odyssey
Nonfiction books: Up from Slavery
Collections: The Canterbury Tales
Musical albums: Abbey Road
Plays: Romeo and Juliet
Musical compositions: Handel’s Messiah
Operas and ballets: Swan Lake
Works of visual art: the Mona Lisa
Software: PowerPoint
Legal cases: Marbury v. Madison
Films: The Wizard of Oz
Board or video games: Monopoly, Minecraft
Magazines: Newsweek
Newspapers: Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Websites: Web Gallery of Art
TV and radio programs: Sixty Minutes
Ships, trains, aircraft: Queen Mary
QUOTATION MARKS
Shorter works, parts of collections
Short stories: “Revelation”
Short poems: “The Road Not Taken”
Chapters: “The Whiteness of the Whale”
Essays or articles: “Self-Reliance”
Songs: “Here Comes the Sun”
NO ITALICS OR QUOTATION MARKS
Untitled music: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor
Sacred books: the Bible, the Koran
Books of the Bible: Esther, Psalms
Legal documents: the Constitution
Brand names: Honda, Kleenex
Traditional games: chess, poker
Academic classes: Introduction to Psychology
Leave a title that appears within a title unitalicized:
What Happens in Hamlet
A Preface to Paradise Lost