should a book title be italicized in an essay

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay (MLA, APA etc.)

Formatting your essay correctly ensures that you get full recognition for the hard work you put into it. Wondering what to do? There are two scenarios that lead you to the question of "how to write a book title in an essay":

You have not been required to use a particular style guide, in which case consistency remains important.
You have been instructed to use a particular style guide. You now simply need to ensure that you are familiar with its rules.

Regardless of which of these scenarios holds true for you, this guide is here to help.

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay

Many style manuals call on writers use title case and italics to format a book title. Title case rules vary slightly from one style guide to the next, but generally capitalize all important words — nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs. Conjunctions and prepositions are not capitalized unless they are very long (generally more than four letters) or they appear at the beginning or end of a book title.

Writers who are not required to work with a specific style manual can't go wrong if they stick to this style. Some examples would be:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals That Protect us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
The Cat With a Feathery Tail and Other Stories by Enid Blyton

If, on the other hand, you're required to use a style guide, it will likely be one of these:

MLA, commonly used in disciplines relating to literature and social sciences.
APA, commonly used in psychology and other sciences.
Chicago, often used in the publishing industry.
Harvard style, commonly used in philosophy and social sciences.

These are certainly not the only "big players" in the style guide world, but they're ones it's good to be familiar with. There is overlap between these styles, but there are also major differences — so knowing one definitely does not mean you know the others, too.

Guidelines for Writing a Book Title in an Essay

Looking for a short and sharp answer, so you can get on with the rest of your essay? This is it.

This quick guide will help you reference the book title of your choosing in the body of your essay, but what about your Works Cited pages? Each style guide offers different rules, and we'll use the same book as an example to illustrate the differences.

MLA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. Tor Books, 1985. (You only have to detail the city of publication if the book was published before 1900, the publisher has offices in many localities, or the publisher is not known in the US.)
APA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. (Year of Publication). Title of book. Example: Card, Orson Scott. (1985). Ender's game.
Chicago style uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle . Place of publication: Publisher, Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game . Tor Books, 1985.
Harvard uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Initial. (Publication Year). Title . ed. City: Publisher. Example: Card, O. (1985). Ender's Game. Tor Books.

If, after researching, you cannot find relevant information about publication years, publishers, or the city in which a book was published, you may omit it. For a full guide, it is always best to have a physical copy of the latest edition of the style manual you are using. You can, however, get by without this if you need to.

Should you still not know what to do, it will be helpful for you to know that you can "generate" citations for a particular style manual with the help of online tools like Cite Me . These are not always accurate, so if you decide to use one, always check the citation manually.

Why Is Proper Formatting Important?

All of the well-known style manuals ultimately serve the very same set of purposes, although they were each developed for a particular niche. The goals of these style manuals are both explicit and implicit:

Following a style guide ensures consistency throughout a document, in this case an essay.
Consistency ensures that reader's understand precisely what the writer is talking about, without exerting any effort on figuring that out. Clarity is especially important in academic writing.
By using a style guide within a certain discipline, you show that you understand the rules within that discipline. This adds credibility to your voice as a writer. You have done your homework, have ideally bought the style manual, and are part of the "in group".
Sticking to a certain style guide makes it easier for relevant parties to check your references, which they can then use to perform further research.

Students are increasingly asked to refer to style guides at all levels, including in high school. In this case, formatting your essay correctly, in accordance with the right style manual, serves two additional purposes:

You'll lose points if you don't do it right, offering you an additional reason to do your research.
Getting used to these formats prepares you for further education. If you are in high school, it prepares you for college-level writing. If you are an undergraduate student, it prepares you for academic work at the graduate and post-graduate levels.

Can you start an essay with a book title?

Yes, you can start an essay with a book title. This is a valid stylistic choice, but you will always want to consider your introduction carefully.

How do you write a book title in handwriting?

Students sometimes ask whether it is acceptable to underline book titles instead of italicizing them. This practice indeed stems from a time in which most students wrote their essays by hand. Although it has largely fallen out of practice now, you can still underline a book title if you are handwriting your essay.

How do you write a book title and chapter in an essay?

You should mention the chapter title first: "Rat" from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Consult the relevant style manual to ensure you get the formatting right.

Can you shorten a book title in an essay?

Yes, you can. Reference the full title the first time you mention it (for example: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things ). The next time you mention the book, you may simply refer to Furiously Happy .

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Writing A Book Title In Your Essay – The Right Way

Table of contents

1 APA Style: How to Write Book Titles in Essays
2 APA Style Essay: Writing The Name of The Author
3 MLA Style Essay: Citing a Book Title
4 Chicago Style Essay: Writing the Book Title
5 Writing Various Types of Titles
6 Should We Underline or Italicize Book Titles?

When you are writing an academic essay , the book title and author’s name should be written in italics. However, if the book title is part of a larger work (such as a journal article), it should be underlined instead. So, you’re wondering how to write a book title in an essay?

Writing an essay with a book title can be tricky, particularly because each style guide has its own formatting rules for including titles in the main text. Whether you are using MLA, APA, Chicago, or Harvard referencing styles, you will need to consider how to properly format the book title. For more complicated literature-based assignments, seeking assistance from an admission essay writing service may be wise, as they specialize in writing essays that incorporate academic sources.

In this article, we will explore how to write both titles in an essay properly so that you avoid any mistakes!

APA Style: How to Write Book Titles in Essays

When writing an essay, you must follow the style guide provided by your professor. Some teachers may require you to use APA style and others MLA style. There are some rules on how to quote a book title in an essay. You should use italics and quotation marks when writing book titles in essays. For example: “ The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. “

When writing a book title in APA Style , you should be aware of these rules:

Write the book title in italics and place it after the author’s name, which is presented in reverse order (last name first).

Use quotation marks around the headline of a chapter or article.

Capitalize proper names that are not common nouns (names of people, places, organizations), but do not capitalize words such as “and,” “or,” “to,” or “and/or.”

Do not capitalize prepositions that appear at the beginning of titles if they are followed by an article (e.g., “A,” “An”), but do capitalize prepositions at the beginning of titles if they are not followed by articles (“Of”).

The first word of the headline should be capitalized, as well as any other words after a colon or hyphen. For example, “The Elements of Style: Grammar for Everyone” or “Theories of Personality: Critical Perspectives.”

Capitalize proper names and words derived from them (e.g., the names of people, places, organizations), except proper nouns used generically (e.g., ‘a bed’).

APA Style Essay: Writing The Name of The Author

You should always use the full name and surname of the author in your APA essay because this will give proper credit to the writer. If you do not mention the author’s full name, people may not know who wrote what and will think you copied it from somewhere else. This will cause lots of problems for you and your reputation as well.

Make sure that all authors’ names appear in the same format in each entry. For example, if one person’s surname is Smith and another’s is Jones, both have first names starting with “J.” It may seem like they are being cited as different people when they’re actually written differently from each other on separate pages in your paper.

To write an APA essay without any issues, there are certain rules that you need to follow while writing an author’s name in APA essay:

Use only one author’s name in your paper unless there are multiple authors
If there are multiple authors, then use both their last names followed by the initials of their first names
Only use initials of first names when there are three or more authors; otherwise, use full names with their last names

Example: Johnson, M.C., Carlson, M., Smith, J. N., & Hanover, L. E.

MLA Style Essay: Citing a Book Title

Now let’s discuss how to mention a book in an essay. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition, published by the Modern Language Association (2014), contains detailed rules about how to cite a book title in an essay.

The following guidelines will instruct you on how to refer to a book in an essay in MLA style :

List your sources at the end of your paper, before the works cited page or bibliography.
Use italics for titles of books, magazines, and newspapers, but not for articles within those publications, which should be placed in quotation marks.
Include all relevant book information under two categories: “title” and “author.” In the former category, include the work’s title and its subtitle if there is one; do this even if neither appears on your title page (see below). In the latter category, include only primary authors who have written or edited an entire book; if there are multiple contributors, you should cite them separately under each.

The general format for citing the title of the book in an essay is as follows:

Author’s last name, first initial (Date). Title of Book with Subtitle if there is one. Publisher Name/Location of Publisher; Year Published

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Chicago Style Essay: Writing the Book Title

One of the most important things to remember when writing in Chicago style is how to write the title of a book in an essay. To write a good book title in an essay, you should follow these steps:

Write it at the beginning of your sentence.
Capitalize it just like any other noun or proper noun.
Put a comma after the title unless it’s an introductory clause or phrase. For example: “The Firm,” by John Grisham (not “by”) and “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D Salinger (not “and”).
In addition to the book’s name, punctuation marks should also be italicized.

For example: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince: Children’s Edition

Writing Various Types of Titles

Now that we covered how to write a book title and author in an essay, it’s time to look at some different types of titles. When you write a book title in an essay, several things must be considered. Whether it’s a book, series, chapter title, editor’s name, or author’s name, how you write it depends on where it appears in your paper.

Here are some key rules for writing headings for novels:

Use capital letters to write the title of the novel. For example, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett .
Use italics and capital letters to write the name of the author and his/her other works mentioned in a book title—for example, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) .

You should use quotation marks when writing headings of short title poems, articles, and stories.

However, before deciding which format to use, it is important to understand the main idea you want to express in your essay. Additionally, you could use essay papers for sale to help you accomplish your goal of writing an essay effectively.

Should We Underline or Italicize Book Titles?

It depends on which style guide you use. The Modern Language Association and Chicago Manual of Style both suggest using italics, while the American Psychological Association suggests using quotation marks with a few exceptions.

The way you write the title of a book in an essay is different depending on the instructions you were given. For example, if you’re writing an essay in APA style, use quotation marks around the book’s name. If you’re writing for MLA or Chicago style , however, italicize the book’s name instead. If you’re writing a handwritten essay instead of using a computer, capitalize and underline the book’s name.

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should a book title be italicized in an essay

Do You Italicize Book Titles? MLA, Chicago Manual, and APA Rules (Examples)

Whether you are writing a book, a business blog, a research paper, or a magazine article, staying true (and consistent) to grammar and style is extremely important. It makes the entire article/ manuscript consistent and reading easy !

But with so many styles and style guides around, losing track is very common. This is especially true when you are writing titles – of books, stories, poems, chapters, and more – in your articles. Don’t you wonder whether you should underline the book titles, put them in italics, write them in quotation marks , or follow the traditional capital letter style? Well, we all do, and we often find ourselves hovering over different options, completely unsure of which one to choose .

So, should you italicize book titles or underline them?

The general rule says, always italicize book titles, if they are long and complete work. This keeps them distinct and makes them easily recognizable, especially when you are mentioning a book within your content. Italicizing also helps the reader to understand that this particular book is separate from the rest of the work they are reading. However, short titles – of poems, stories, articles, and chapters are often written in quotation marks.

For example:

Long title: Have you read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust?

Short title: Grab your copy of “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy.

Now, this sometimes, can get very confusing and can put your writing all over the place. So when you are stuck between a right and a wrong, always follow the rule of thumb – How you write book titles in your work is a matter of choice (style). It is not governed by any grammarian law. There is no single source that governs how you must handle titled works and mostly depends on the style guide your publication is following – APA, Chicago, MLA, or any other.

So ask your editor his/ her preference and stick to it across your content. After all, consistency is the key to turning your writing into the most professional-looking copy .

In this article, we’ll help you learn the styling parameters that different style guides follow while writing book titles:

MLA rules for italicizing book titles

MLA stands for Modern Language Association – a United States-based society that styles manuals for students and scholars across the world. The MLA Handbook follows a particular style for documenting book titles, in the text as well as at the end of the article. As per the MLA style guide:

Titles that are independent and self-contained are italicized.
If the book title has a subtitle, the subtitle is italicized and separated by a colon (:).
Titles that are contained in larger works ( e.g. , short stories, chapters) are put in quotations.
However, when it comes to series titles, the MLA rules are a little confusing. In MLA, if a series title forms a part of the book title, then it is italicized. Otherwise, it is left in plain text. For example, the ‘Twilight Saga’ is a series title that you won’t italicize because it is not the tile of the book. But Harry Potter (a series title) you will italicize because it also forms a part of the title.
Godfrey, Wyck., et al. The Twilight Saga : New Moon . Two-disc special ed. [Los Angeles, CA], Summit Entertainment, 2010.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998.

Chicago Manual of style rules

The Chicago Manual of Style is another widely accepted and used citation system. It is used across various disciplines like the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and more. It has its own style for citing books , titles, and full-length and freestanding works. If you want to follow the Chicago Manual of Style while formatting your book titles, here are some points to remember:

Always italicize and capitalize the titles of your full-length, freestanding works. These include books, magazines, journals, blogs, research papers, and more.
Online book citation also follows the same format.
Chapter titles are always written in quotations and are not italicized.

APA style guide rules

The American Psychological Association (APA) is one of the most common and widely used reference styles. It is mostly used as a citation style for books and manuals written in the field of social sciences, psychology, sociology, and more. It has its own set of rules for in-text and reference list citations. But when it comes to italicizing the books’ titles, the rules are pretty similar.

Though in the APA, italicizing is kept to the bare minimum, long book titles, periodicals, webpages, reports, and standalone work are all italicized.
Chapter titles in the APA are neither italicized nor written within quotes; the book titles however are. Also, the name of the chapter’s author is written in the first position.

7th Edition rules

The seventh edition of the APA is the latest edition and its purpose is to help students, scholars, and researchers write and communicate more effectively. Some of the biggest changes brought by the APA in its seventh edition include:

The first letter (of the first word) of the title is capitalized.
If there is a colon (:) in the title, the first letter after the colon is also capitalized.
Proper names in titles are always capital
Titles of books, magazines, journals, and newspapers are always italicized.
Titles of articles or book chapters are not italicized.
The title of the webpage is always italicized.
The publisher’s location is no longer included in the reference.

When to Italicize Book Titles

As you could see , when it comes to writing book titles, a common rule applies across all styles ( barring a few exceptions ). So, if you are not following a particular citation style that asks you to do otherwise, this is a general rule that you can easily fall back on:

Always italicize the titles of self-contained, independent work: books, albums
Always italicize the titles of large books, like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Always italicize magazine names, like The New Yorker
Always italicize newspapers, like The New York Times

Italicizing titles creates a visual hierarchy and helps a reference source stand out from the rest of the text.

When to Avoid Italicizing Book Titles?

While most book titles should be italicized, there are some exceptions to the rule:

Short titles or titles of smaller works are not italicized. These include titles of short stories, poems, and chapters.
The title of the series is not italicized. For example, while you would italicize Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , you would not highlight the Harry Potter Series.
Holy Books like The Bible and Quran, along with their sections, are not italicized.
Headlines and course titles are also not italicized.

Do You Underline Book Titles?

No, we do not underline book titles . Underlining is an old formatting style that was once extensively used to emphasize certain words, phrases, and titles. But today, due to the availability of extensive formatting options, underlining has lost its mark and is not used as a preferred formatting option.

However, if you are writing with a medium that does not offer the option to italicize, you may underline the text to emphasize it.

Do You Quote Book Titles?

Books, magazines, newspapers, and series all comprise many smaller parts, like a short poem, a chapter, a short story, and an episode. When citing these small pieces of work, we prefer writing them in quotation marks.

The teacher read a story titled “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl.

I missed the last episode of “Shaun the Sheep”.

Susan is reading “The Fellowship of the Ring” from the Lord of the Rings .

Do You Italicize Book Series Titles?

While italics are used to emphasize book titles, trilogies and book series titles are only capitalized, not italicized.

What About Children’s Book Titles, Do Those Get Italicized?

Children’s books in style guides get the same treatment as other authored books. That is, titles of full works are italicized but short titles of poems, short stories, articles, or chapters are put within quotation marks. Also, in addition to the author’s name, they also include the illustrator’s name.

Italics and Underlining: Titles of Works
Treatment of titles
Do You Italicize Book Titles In APA? A Must Read
Should You Underline Or Italicise Book Titles?
Do You Italicize Book Titles? Essay Secrets Revealed
Should You Italicize Book Titles? A Guide to Formatting Titles

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How to Write Book Titles in Your Essays

3-minute read
26th May 2023

When writing an essay, you’re likely to mention other authors’ works, such as books, papers, and articles. Formatting the titles of these works usually involves using quotation marks or italics.

So how do you write a book title in an essay? Most style guides have a standard for this – be sure to check that first. If you’re unsure, though, check out our guide below.

Italics or Quotation Marks?

As a general rule, you should set titles of longer works in italics , and titles of shorter works go in quotation marks . Longer works include books, journals, TV shows, albums, plays, etc. Here’s an example of a book mention:

Shorter works include poems, articles, chapters of books, episodes of TV shows, songs, etc. If it’s a piece that’s part of a biggHow to Write Book Titles in Your Essayser work, the piece considered a short work:

Exceptions to the Rule

The rule for writing book titles in italics applies specifically to running text . If the book title is standing on its own, as in a heading, there’s no need to italicize it.

Additionally, if the book is part of a larger series and you’re mentioning both the title of the series and that of the individual book, you can consider the book a shorter work. You would set the title of the series in italics and place the book title in quotation marks:

Punctuation in Book Titles

Do you need to apply italics to the punctuation in a book title? The short answer is yes – but only if the punctuation is part of the title:

If the punctuation isn’t part of the title (i.e., the punctuation is part of the sentence containing the title), you shouldn’t include in the italics:

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Summary: Writing Book Titles in Essays

We hope you’ll now feel confident when you’re writing and formatting book titles in your essays. Generally, you should set the title in italics when it’s in running text. Remember, though, to check your style guide. While the standards we’ve covered are the most common, some style guides have different requirements.

And once you finish writing your paper, make sure you send it our way! We’ll make sure any titles are formatted correctly as well as checking your work for grammar, spelling, punctuation, referencing, and more. Submit a free sample to try our service today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you write the title of a book in a sentence.

Set the title of the book in italics unless the book is part of a larger work (e.g., a book that’s part of a series):

When do you use quotation marks for titles?

Place titles of shorter works or pieces that are contained in a larger work in quotation marks:

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MLA Style Guide Eighth Edition

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Title of Source. The title is usually taken from an authoritative location in the source such as the title page. It is the name of the source you are using. Capitalize the following parts of speech in a title: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subordinating conjunctions (although, because, unless, after, until, when, where, while, etc.). Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, the "to" in infinitives if they appear in the middle of the title. A colon separates the title from the subtitle unless it ends in a question mark or exclamation. Titles should be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks. Titles that are independent and self-contained (e.g., books) and titles of containers (e.g., anthologies) should be italicized. Titles that are contained in larger works (e.g., short stories) should be in quotation s. Exceptions to the above rule are: 1) Scripture (Genesis, Bible, Gospels, Upanishads, Old Testament, Talmud, etc.) Titles of individualized scripture writings, however, should be italicized and treated like any other published work.(e.g. The Interlinear Bible) 2) Names of laws, acts and political documents (Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Treaty of Marseilles, etc.) 3) Musical compositions identified by form, number, and key (Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A, op. 92) 4) Series titles (Critical American Studies, Bollingen Series, etc.) 5) Conferences, seminars, workshops, and courses (MLA Annual Convention, English 110)

The title of the work follows the author and ends with a period . Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind . New York: Macmillan, 1961.

A sub-title is included after the main title . Joyce, Michael. Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture. U of Michigan P, 2000. Baron, Sabrina Alcorn et al., editors. Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 2007.

The title of a story, poem or essay in a collection, as part of a larger whole, is placed in quotation marks . Dewar, James A., and Peng Hwa Ang. "The Cultural Consequences of Printing and the Internet." Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 2007, pp. 365-77.

Independent work in a collection When a work that is normally independent (such as a novel or play) appears in a collection, the work's title remains in italics. Euripides. The Trojan Women . Ten Plays, translated by Paul Roche, New American Library, 1998, pp. 457-512.

The title of a periodical (journal, magazine, or newspaper) is in italics and the title of the article is in quotation marks. Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010 pp. 69-88. Note: This rule applies to all media forms such as the title of a television series, an episode in a television series, a song or piece of music in an album, a posting or article on a web page. See examples below. Television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Episode in a television series "Hush." Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. So Many Books . 2003-13, somanybooksbkog.com Note: When giving a URL, omit http and https. Posting of an article on a web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 April 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital- and-print/. A song or piece of music in an album Beyonce. "Pretty Hurts." Beyonce , Parkwood Entertainment, 2013, www.beyonce.com/album/beyonce/?media_view=songs.

Untitled Source In the place of the title, provide a generic description of the source without italics or quotation marks. Capitalize the first word in the title and any proper nouns in it. Mackintosh, Charles Rennie. Chair of Stained Oak. 1897-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Comment or review of a title in an online forum Jeane. Comment on "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, 10:30 p.m., somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and- print/#comment-83030

Review of a title in an online forum Mackin, Joseph. Review of The Pleasures of Reading of an age of Distraction , by Alan Jacobs. New York Journal of Books, 2 June 2011, www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/ pleasures-reading-age-distraction.

Tweet Reproduce the full text without changing anything and enclose within quotation marks. @persiankiwi."We have report of large street battles in east and west of Tehran now. - #Iranelection." Twitter , 23 June 2009, 11:15 a.m., twitter.com/persianwiki/status/2298106072.

E-mail message Use subject as the title. Subject is enclosed in quotation marks. Boyle, Anthony T. "Re: Utopia." Received by Daniel J. Cayhill, 21 June 1997.

Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword Capitalize the term in the works cited list but do not italicize or enclose in quotation marks. The term need not be capitalized in in-text discussion. Felstiner, John. Preface. Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan , by Paul Celan, translated by Felstiner W.W. Norton, 2001, pp.xix-xxxvi.

Translations of Titles Place translations of titles for foreign works in square brackets in the works cited list. The translation appears next to the title.

Shortened titles The first time a title is mentioned in your work, it should appear in full. If the title is repeated in the work, it can be shortened to a familiar one (e.g., Skylark for Ode to a Skylark).

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Let’s Clear This Up: Should You Underline Or Italicize Book Titles?

If your teachers taught you to underline book titles , it probably didn’t make sense to argue.

Plus, underlining is just easier when you’re writing things out by hand.

Not so with texting — or when you’re writing a book of your own.

When you reference your sources, do you underline or italicize book titles?

Are novels italicized or underlined?

And does it matter whether a novel or novelette is part of an anthology ?

What are the rules worth remembering?

The Basics: Do You Underline or Italicize Book Titles?

Some exceptions to the rule: should you underline or italicize book titles, punctuating book titles, book title italics or quotes .

Do You Italicize Books Like The Lord of the Rings?

Do You Italicize the Titles of Sacred Books?

What does the ap stylebook recommend.

If your main question is “Do I underline book titles or italicize them?” most style guides recommend the following guidelines:

If you have italics as an option, use it.
If not, underline.
If underlining isn’t an option, use asterisks or under-slashes to set off titles.

That last one is the way to go when you include a book title in a text message or social media post or comment, where you can’t apply any kind of text formatting.

Underlining can be problematic with digital text (websites, digital apps, and ebooks) since we now associate it with hyperlinks, even if the font color matches the text around it.

Probably the most common scenario, when you can underline but not effectively italicize, is when you’re writing something by hand. While you could switch to cursive mid-sentence, underlining is less likely to be dismissed as a random quirk.

Plus, underlining is easier than cursive.

We’ve already mentioned one exception to the rule favoring italics. Handwriting makes underlining easier and more obvious.

Another exception is when you’re submitting text through a web form, which doesn’t allow text formatting (much like texting and social media posts).

A third exception involves chunks of italicized text that include a book title. In this case, you’ll want to keep the title unitalicized to make it stand out.

Keep these exceptions in mind when someone asks you, “Do you italicize book titles?” Because they do matter.

There’s one final exception, which we’ll revisit at the end of this post, and that has to do with the particular style guide you may be using.

So, what do you do if you’re italicizing a book title and you have to add punctuation — like an apostrophe to show possession — that isn’t part of the title? Do you treat that differently from the punctuation that the author included?

For the sake of clarity, we keep any added punctuation (apostrophes, dashes , ellipses, etc.) — anything not native to the original title — in regular, non-italicized text.

Examples:

“Looking at the books stacked nearby, I saw that Blink ’s cover was slightly creased from its days in my purse.” (The apostrophe-s ending is not italicized because it’s not part of the title.)
“She just finished reading Salem’s Lot , and she’d rather not talk about it. Give her time.” (In this case, the apostrophe-s at the end of Salem is part of the title and is italicized.)

So, are all book titles italicized? And what about titles for smaller works like short stories, magazine articles, and blog posts?

To keep the rule as simple as possible, ask yourself whether the title in question is for a published container — like a blog, a website, a magazine or scholarly journal, or a complete book — or for something that would be contained.

Would you find this title on the cover of a finished whole (an album, the cover image for a podcast, etc.) or in a table of contents or a list of songs, poems, or podcast episodes?

Larger works get the italics treatment, as you’ll see in the following examples:

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Back in Black (album) by AC/DC
Live Bold and Bloom (blog)
Authority Self Publishing: Marketing, Writing, and Kindle Publishing Tips (podcast)

Smaller works that a larger work could contain get quotation marks. It’s not about which one is more important; it’s about making it easier for readers to tell them apart.

When you see a story title in quotation marks, you’re more likely to think, “Oh, that must be a short story?” Find a book of short stories and check out the table of contents, and you’ll find quotes around each story’s title.

Each is a smaller part of the whole collection, which bears an italicized title of its own.

Do You Italicize Titles of Novels and Books Included in Anthologies?

So, what about Reader’s Digest Condensed Books (1950-1997) — or Reader’s Digest Select Editions (since 1997)?

Each of the works included are abridged versions of completed books and novels.

If you’re looking up some options on Amazon, you’ll see quotation marks around the titles of the books and novels included in each hardcover edition.

It’s tempting to think the abridgment of the title is the reason for this. But collections like Reader’s Digest editions aren’t the only ones that do this—even when the titles in the collection are unabridged originals.

Read on for another well-known example.

Do You Italicize Books Like The Lord of the Rings ?

Books like LOTR bring together separate books that are all part of a complete series. In LOTR’s case, the complete set is a trilogy with the following titles:

The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King

If the book you’re referencing in your own writing is a separate title with its own cover, you’ll italicize the title in-text citations and in your bibliography.

But if you’re using the complete LOTR trilogy under one cover, you’ll set off any of the enclosed titles with quotation marks — as if they were separate parts of a larger book.

The same rule applies to other books that include all the titles in a specific series.

While we do italicize specific editions of sacred books (e.g., The New King James Bible ), we do not generally italicize or underline the generic titles of sacred religious texts:

The Bible (and individual books in the Bible)
The Koran / Qur’an and The Hadiths
The Vedas and the Upanishads
The Tanakh and the Talmud
The Tipitaka (Buddhism)

As for the specific books inside the Christian Bible, if you’re referencing a specific verse, you’ll include the name of the book (or an abbreviation), along with the chapter and verse, and text formatted the same as the text around it (e.g., Matt 3:5 or 2 Corinthians 4:16).

Not all style guides recommend italicizing book titles; the AP Stylebook uses quotation marks instead, maybe just to simplify things.

That said, publications like Writers Digest use the AP Stylebook but choose to italicize their book titles in deference to their own house rules.

Whether you go that route will likely depend on what you or your client wants.

If you’re thoroughly confused right now, the main thing to remember is that in most cases, the rules described above will help you correctly format any book titles you reference in your own writing.

If it’s a container (book, album, podcast, TV series, etc.), use italics.
If it’s contained by a container (poem, TV episode, song, etc.), use quotation marks.

When in doubt, check your style guide. And if you’re writing for someone else, ask them what they prefer or consult their chosen style guide.

Whatever rules you go with, be consistent.

Now that you know how to answer the question, “Do you underline book titles or italicize them?” which points stood out for you as most helpful? And what have you learned that you want to remember?