Writing
Title case rules: which words to capitalize in a title in AP, APA, Chicago and MLA
In title case, every major style capitalizes the first word and all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and lowercases articles and short prepositions inside the title. They part on length: AP and APA capitalize any word of four letters or more (With); Chicago (18th edition) capitalizes prepositions of five or more letters; MLA lowercases prepositions of any length.
The rule every style shares
Every title case style starts from the same two lists. Major words take a capital: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, however short they are. Minor words stay lowercase inside the title: the articles a, an and the, short prepositions such as of, in, on and to, and the coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, or and nor. The first word of a title always takes a capital, whatever it is.
The four style guides an English-language writer is most likely to be held to, the AP Stylebook, APA's Publication Manual (7th edition), The Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition) and the MLA Handbook (9th edition), agree on all of that. They part on three things: how long a preposition has to be before it counts as a major word, whether the last word always takes a capital, and how much they say about hyphenated compounds. The table below sets the four side by side; the sections after it give each style's rule with its source.
Side by side: AP, APA, Chicago and MLA
| Word or position | AP Stylebook | APA 7 | Chicago 18 | MLA 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articles: a, an, the | Lowercase, unless first or last word | Lowercase, unless first word of the title or subtitle | Lowercase, unless first or last word, or first of a subtitle | Lowercase, unless first word of the title or subtitle, or last word |
| Prepositions of 2-3 letters: of, in, on, to, by, for, via | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| Prepositions of 4 letters: with, from, into, over | Capital | Capital | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| Prepositions of 5+ letters: about, among, under, between | Capital | Capital | Capital (since 2024) | Lowercase, however long |
| Coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| so, yet | Lowercase (3 letters or fewer) | Lowercase (APA lists both) | Not on a public Chicago page | Not on a public MLA page |
| Other words of 4+ letters: because, while, when | Capital | Capital: APA capitalizes every word of four letters or more | Capital, unless a preposition of 4 letters | Capital, unless a preposition or coordinating conjunction |
| Hyphenated compound | Not stated on a page we could read; its examples capitalize both parts | Capital on the second part of a major word: Self-Report | First part always; later parts unless minor words | No public rule found |
| First word after a colon (subtitle) | Not confirmed | Capital, always | Capital, always | Capital, even an article |
| Last word | Capital | Not named as an exception | Capital | Capital |
The difference that changes the most titles is the four-letter preposition. With, from, into, over, onto, upon and near take a capital in AP and APA and stay lowercase in Chicago and MLA. Five-letter prepositions split the other way since 2024: Chicago now capitalizes About, Among and Under with AP and APA, and MLA is the only one of the four that still lowercases them.
One title in each style
The quickest way to see the rules is to run the same titles through all four. The first two are the examples Chicago itself gave when it announced the 18th edition; the third is MLA's own example for a two-word preposition; the fourth is built to touch every rule at once.
| Typed as | AP | APA 7 | Chicago 18 | MLA 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a room with a view | A Room With a View | A Room With a View | A Room with a View | A Room with a View |
| much ado about nothing | Much Ado About Nothing | Much Ado About Nothing | Much Ado About Nothing | Much Ado about Nothing |
| the world according to garp | The World According to Garp | The World According to Garp | Not confirmed (see below) | The World according to Garp |
| writing from memory: notes on grief and love across forty years | Writing From Memory: Notes on Grief and Love Across Forty Years | Writing From Memory: Notes on Grief and Love Across Forty Years | Writing from Memory: Notes on Grief and Love Across Forty Years | Writing from Memory: Notes on Grief and Love across Forty Years |
The fourth title comes out four different ways. From (four letters) splits AP and APA from Chicago and MLA; Across (six letters) splits Chicago from MLA; Notes takes a capital everywhere because it opens the subtitle; and on and and stay lowercase in every style. For according to, MLA's Ask the MLA answer keeps a multi-word preposition lowercase "no matter how long those words are". Whether Chicago's five-letter rule now capitalizes the first word of a two-word preposition is not stated on any public Chicago page we could find.
In an APA reference list the same title is not in title case at all. APA puts the titles of articles, books and web pages there in sentence case: Writing from memory: Notes on grief and love across forty years. Lowering the words is mechanical; knowing which capitals belong to names is not, which is why the citation generator lists every word it lowered and lets you tap a name to keep its capital.
AP Stylebook: four letters or more
AP capitalizes the principal words of a composition title, the title of a book, film, song or other work, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters. It lowercases the articles and prepositions and conjunctions of three letters or fewer, unless one of them is the first or last word. That is the rule as quoted by Missouri State University's AP-based brand guide, whose examples include Gone With the Wind and The Star-Spangled Banner.
The full Stylebook is a subscription at apstylebook.com, which also blocks automated readers, so we could not check its current wording directly. Two AP points in particular could not be confirmed from a public AP page: whether the first word after a colon in a title always takes a capital, and how AP treats to in an infinitive, on which secondary guides disagree. AP's composition-title rule is for titles of works; a newsroom's headlines may follow a different house rule.
APA 7th edition: length decides
APA is the only one of the four in which length alone makes a word major. Its title case page (Publication Manual section 6.17) counts as major words nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and all words of four letters or more, with With, Between and From as its examples. Minor words are "short (i.e., three letters or fewer) conjunctions, short prepositions, and all articles". APA's lists include and, as, but, for, if, nor, or, so and yet among the conjunctions and as, at, by, for, in, of, off, on, per, to, up and via among the prepositions.
Three more APA rules matter for titles and headings:
- Capitalize the first word of the title and of a subtitle, even if it is A or The.
- In a heading, capitalize the first word after a colon, an em dash or end punctuation.
- Capitalize the second part of a hyphenated major word: Self-Report, not Self-report.
APA uses title case for the title of a paper, its headings, table and figure titles, and the titles of works named in the text. It uses sentence case for titles of articles, books and web pages in the reference list. apastyle.apa.org refused our automated reader on 4 November 2026, so the APA wording above is quoted from its title-case page as search engines index it, not read on the page that day.
Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition: five letters or more
Chicago changed its preposition rule in 2024. When it announced the 18th edition, Chicago said that "prepositions of five or more letters will now be capitalized (A Room with a View but Much Ado About Nothing)", and that it would now call the style title case rather than headline style. Until then, Chicago lowercased prepositions whatever their length, which is why so many older guides still say Much Ado about Nothing. Chicago's own Workout 29 on titles, updated for the 18th edition in January 2025, places the rules at paragraphs 8.158 to 8.169.
For words that follow a colon, Chicago's advice on colons says that in titles, chapter titles and other display type "it's normal to cap after a colon", whether or not what follows is a complete sentence. Workout 29 also tests the Manual's rule that a preposition used as an adverb or adjective takes a capital (Giving Up), which a program cannot tell from the letters: the citation generator capitalizes words such as after, since and up for that reason, and asks you to lower them by hand where they are prepositions.
The rest of Chicago's list, including the first and last word rule, the conjunctions it lowers and the details of hyphenated compounds (paragraph 8.161, whose example is Non-English-Speaking Representatives), is in the Manual itself. Chicago's Q&A pages asked for a login when we checked on 4 November 2026, so those rules are stated here from the Manual rather than linked.
MLA Handbook, 9th edition: prepositions stay low
MLA capitalizes English titles in what it long called headline style. Its note on why defines that style, in Chicago's words, as "capitalizing all words except prepositions and the common coordinating conjunctions". The 9th edition's rule, quoted in an MLA answer on handout titles, is to "capitalize the first word, the last word, and all principal words" (MLA Handbook 2.90).
Three public MLA answers settle the cases people search for most:
- Prepositions: lowercase "no matter how long those words are", even a two-word preposition such as according to, unless it starts or ends the title (MLA, 2019).
- Subtitles: "capitalize the first letter of the first word of a subtitle that follows a colon, even if that word is an article" (MLA's reply of 27 May 2020 on its colons post).
- Conjunctions: MLA's grammar page names "and, but, for, nor, and or" as the principal coordinating conjunctions (MLA, 2020). Whether so and yet are lowered with them is set out in the Handbook, not on a public MLA page.
Titles in languages other than English are capitalized by sentence style in MLA, following the language's own rules. Sentence case for a title is also a different job from putting a capital at the start of each sentence in a text, which is what capitalize sentences does: it never lowers a word and never applies title case.
Short words that are not minor words
Length only decides for articles, prepositions and conjunctions. Every other part of speech is a major word however short, and these are the words most often lowered by mistake:
| Word | Part of speech | Example in title case |
|---|---|---|
| Is, Are, Be, Was | Verb | What It Is to Be Free |
| It, He, We, Its, His | Pronoun or possessive | Why We Left |
| Not | Adverb | Why Not Now |
Short conjunctions are where the styles part again. AP and APA lowercase if, as a conjunction of three letters or fewer; MLA capitalizes everything except prepositions, coordinating conjunctions and articles, which takes in If, and Chicago's Manual capitalizes it as a subordinating conjunction. The same word can also change role: for is a preposition in A Gift for Mother and a conjunction in For We Were Young, and is lowercase in both unless it opens the title.
Where popular guides go wrong
Two of the most-read title case guides were still teaching the old Chicago rule a year after the 18th edition. Kindlepreneur (updated 1 October 2025) says Chicago lowercases prepositions regardless of length, and Reedsy (updated 15 October 2025) lists "prepositions of any length" among the words Chicago lowercases. Since 2024 Chicago capitalizes prepositions of five or more letters, so a Chicago title is Much Ado About Nothing.
The second slip is the AP and APA threshold. Reedsy describes both as capitalizing "words that consist of more than four letters" and lowercasing those "shorter than four letters", which leaves four-letter words in neither list. AP and APA both say four letters or more, so With and From take a capital in both. A third mix-up runs the other way: one university writing centre's MLA title page gives APA's three-letter list of minor words, but MLA lowercases prepositions of every length.
What this guide could and could not confirm
This guide covers title case in English titles and headings under the AP Stylebook, APA 7, Chicago 18 and MLA 9, checked on 4 November 2026. Every rule linked above was read on the style guide's own public page, except APA's, quoted from its indexed page because apastyle.apa.org blocked our reader, and AP's, quoted from a university summary because apstylebook.com is a subscription. Not confirmed from a public official page: AP's capital after a colon and on an infinitive to, AP's and MLA's hyphenated words, how Chicago and MLA treat so and yet, and Chicago's rule for a two-word preposition such as according to.
A publisher's or journal's house style overrides all four, and newspapers, Bluebook legal citation and British publishers have rules of their own. Simple Online Counter is a free, browser-based set of counters and writing tools; its citation generator applies APA sentence case and MLA and Chicago title case to reference titles, and its capital-after-a-colon guide covers the colon rule in running text.
Frequently asked questions
What words are not capitalized in a title?
In every major style, the articles a, an and the, short prepositions such as of, in, on and to, and the coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, or and nor stay lowercase inside a title. They take a capital when they are the first word, and in AP, Chicago and MLA when they are the last. Longer prepositions depend on the style: AP and APA capitalize With and From, Chicago and MLA do not.
Do you capitalize "with" in a title?
It depends on the style. AP and APA capitalize it, because it has four letters: A Room With a View. Chicago lowercases prepositions of four letters or fewer, and MLA lowercases every preposition, so both give A Room with a View. In all four styles, With takes a capital when it is the first word of the title or of a subtitle.
Is "about" capitalized in a title?
In AP, APA and Chicago, yes: about has five letters. Chicago used to lowercase it, but its 18th edition, published in 2024, capitalizes prepositions of five or more letters, as in Much Ado About Nothing. MLA lowercases prepositions whatever their length, so an MLA title reads Much Ado about Nothing unless about is the first or last word.
What is the difference between title case and sentence case?
Title case capitalizes every major word: The Effects of Sleep on Memory. Sentence case capitalizes only what a sentence would: the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns: The effects of sleep on memory. APA uses title case for headings and for titles named in the text, and sentence case for the titles of articles and books in the reference list.
Do you capitalize the word after a colon in a title?
Yes, in APA, Chicago and MLA the first word of a subtitle always takes a capital, even when it is an article or a short preposition: The Lost Year: A Memoir. APA extends this in headings to the first word after an em dash or a full stop. We could not confirm a public AP rule for the first word of a subtitle.
How do you capitalize hyphenated words in a title?
APA capitalizes both parts of a hyphenated major word, so Self-Report, not Self-report. Chicago capitalizes the first part and the later parts that are not minor words, as in its example Non-English-Speaking Representatives. AP's own examples, such as The Star-Spangled Banner, capitalize both parts. We found no public MLA statement on hyphenated words in titles.
Are short verbs like "is" and "be" capitalized in a title?
Yes. Length decides only for articles, prepositions and conjunctions. A verb, a pronoun or an adverb is a major word however short it is, so Is, Be, Are, It, He, His and Not all take a capital in every style: What It Is to Be Free. Lowering Is because it has two letters is one of the most common title case mistakes.
Does APA capitalize the last word of a title?
APA names no last-word rule. Its exceptions to the lowercase rule are the first word of a title or subtitle and, in headings, the first word after a colon, em dash or end punctuation. A final word of four letters or more is capitalized anyway; a short final preposition, as in Looking for, is where APA can differ from AP, Chicago and MLA, which all capitalize the last word.