Editor's Corner

Good morning! Yesterday while ranting about using single quotes, I provided an example that brought on more questions. The question was about the titles of works (paintings, books, articles, etc.). How should titles be formatted? With an underline? With italics? In quotation marks?

The answer is: it depends. The following are rules we use from the Chicago Manual of Style.

Note: In publishing, plain text (not italicized, bold, or underlined) is referred to as “roman” or is said to be “set in roman.”

· Book titles: Title case, italicized

Many editors use The Chicago Manual of Style.

· Book series and editions: Title case, roman

the Loeb Classical Library

a Modern Library edition

the Crime and Justice series

· Movies: Title case, italicized.

Gone with the Wind

· Musical works:

Too specialized for the CMOS; additional references sited.

· Periodicals: Title case, italicized

Sports Illustrated magazine

· Plays: Italicized

Shaw’s Arms and the Man, in volume 2 of his Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant

· Poems (short): Title case, roman, enclosed in quotation marks

Robert Frost’s poem “The Housekeeper” in his collection North of Boston

· Poems (long, book-length): Italicized

Dante’s Inferno

· TV and radio (series): Title case, italicized

PBS’s Sesame Street [KC – The network name and call letters are set in roman.]

· TV and radio (single episodes): Title case, roman, enclosed in quotation marks

“Casualties,” is an episode in The Fortunes of War television series.

· Websites and web page titles: Title case, roman
Websites with comparable printed versions: Title case, italicized
References to titled sections or special features on website: Enclose in quotation marks

The website for Apple Inc.; Apple.com

Google; Google Maps; the “Google Maps Help Center”

Wikipedia; Wikipedia’s “Let It Be” entry; Wikipedia’s entry on the Beatles’ album Let It Be

the Oxford English Dictionary Online; the OED Online; the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary

· Works of art (known artist): Italicized

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper

North Dome, one of Ansel Adams’s photographs of Kings River Canyon

· Works of art (unknown artist): Roman

the Winged Victory

the Venus de Milo

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

Kara

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