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
Kara
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