How to Capitalize Titles in MLA Style
These titles should appear in a research paper as follows:
Modernism and Negritude
Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur
Turner’s Early Sketchbooks
The rules for capitalizing titles are strict. In a title or a subtitle, capitalize the first word, the last word. and all principal words, including those that follow hyphens in compound terms. Therefore, capitalize the following parts of speech:
•

Nouns (e.g., flowers and Europe, as in The Flowers of Europe)

•

Pronouns (e.g., our, as in Save Our Children; that, as in The Mouse That Roared)

•

Verbs (e.g., watches, as in America Watches Television: is, as in What Is Literature?)

•

Adjectives (e.g., ugly, as in The Ugly Duckling: that, as in Who Said That Phrase?)

•

Adverbs (e.g., slightly, as in Only Slightly Corrupt: down, as in Go Down, Moses)

•

Subordinating conjunctions (e.g., after, although, as if, as soon as, because, before, if, that, unless, until, when, where, while, as in One If by Land and Anywhere That Chance
Leads)

Do not capitalize the following parts of speech when they fall in the middle of a title:
• Articles (a. an. the, as in Under the Bamboo Tree)
•

Prepositions (e.g., against, between, in, of, to, as in The Merchant of Venice and A
Dialogue between the Soul and Body

•

Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet, as in Romeo and Juliet)

•

The to in infinitives (as in How to Play Chess)

Use a colon and a space to separate a title from a subtitle, unless the title ends in a question mark, an exclamation point, or a dash. Include other punctuation only if it is part of the title.
The following examples illustrate how to capitalize and punctuate a variety of titles.
Death of a Salesman
The Teaching of Spanish in English-Speaking Countries
Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature
Life As I Find It
The Artist as Critic
What Are You Doing in My Universe?
Whose Music? A Sociology of Musical Language
The Importance of Being Earnest
It’s a Wonderful Life

From: Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: Modern
Language Assoc. of America, 2004. (page 103)

• In MLA format, all titles capitalize the following:
1. The first word of the title [and of the subtitle if one is included]
The Future Fair: A Fair for Everybody
America Eats Its Young: Eavedropping on the Life and Strange Times of George
Clinton
2. All nouns and pronouns
The Future Fair: A Fair for Everybody
Our Man in Havana
The Way We Were
3. All verbs
America Eats Its Young: Eavedropping on the Life and Strange Times of George
Clinton
The Way We Were
Understanding Media
4. All adjectives and adverbs
The Future Fair: A Fair for Everybody
The Very Quiet Caterpillar
I've Been Up So Long It Looks Like Down to Me
5. All subordinating conjunctions — for example, after, although, as if, as soon as, because, before, [etc.] as in
Look As If You're Busy: The Psychology of the Modern Workplace
To Sleep Until the Day Breaks: The Life of the Single Parent
6. In contrast, do not capitalize any of the following [unless the first word of a title or subtitle]
1. Articles [a, an, the]
Look As If You're Busy: The Psychology of the Modern Workplace
To Build a Fire
When You Meet an Aardvark: The Riddles of Working Class Pretoria
2. Prepositions — for example, by, for, on, to, [etc.] as in
The Future Fair: A Fair for Everybody
Our Man in Havana
America Eats Its Young: Eavedropping on the Life and Strange Times of George
Clinton
When We Went down to the Water: A Short History of Early American Coast
Guard Units
3. Coordinating conjunctions [and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet] as in
Young and Angry: The Rise of Punk Culture
Neither Fish nor Fowl: The Taxonomy of Australian Marsupials
4. The word to when used as part of an infinitive verb phrase [to run, to find, to investigate] Mister, Want to Buy a Bunny?: The Life and Fast Times of Spike Jones and His
Orchestra
Kierkegaard or Seven Ways to Understand Modern Existentialism
• If in doubt as to what part of speech (noun, verb, etc.) a given word actually is, consult a standard
English dictionary or handbook of grammar.
From: Richard Stockton College Library: http://library.stockton.edu/Citation_Workshop/FAQ.htm