Title Case
When writing in title case, the first letters of certain words are capitalised whilst others are not. The words whose first letters are capitalised are the principal words, those without which the title would not make sense.
When writing in title case, do not capitalise the first letters of these words:
articles (the, a, an) short prepositions (of, upon, onto…) short conjucntions (and, but, or…)
You will notice that I have written only 'short' prepositions and conjunctions. This is because all words that have more than three letters should be capitalised. The only other rule which contradicts the list above is that the first letter of the first word of a title should always be capitalised, no matter what type of word it is.
When writing in title case, always capitalise the first letters of words abiding by these rules:
If the word is the first in the title. If the word has more than three letters. If the word is a noun, proper noun, pronoun, verb, adjective or adverb. If the word is a written number (Twenty-Three, Six…)
NB: –– Even short verbs (such as 'see' and 'sit') and auxiliary verbs ('be', 'do' and 'have') have their first letter capitalised in titles. –– If a word is hyphenated, always capitalise the first letter of the first word, and only capitalise the first letter of the second word if the first word is not a prefix or combining form that could not make sense alone (co-, re-, un-, dis-, anti-…). For example, Self-Report vs Co-ownership. The word 'self' makes sense alone, and so the R of 'report' must be capitalised; however, Co- cannot stand alone, and so the O in ownership does not need to be capitalised.
A good way of looking at title case, if you're still unsure, is to treat the words whose first letters needn't be capitalised as omittable. In title case, you should be able to read only the words which have capitalised first letters and still get the overall (broken) sense of the title.
Example: The Children Didn't Take their Toys to the Park on Sunday. would be read as The Children Didn't Take Toys Park Sunday.
You can see that, although this doesn't make grammatical sense, all of the principal words lend the title its meaning. Without these, we would not be able to get the title's sense.
NB: In the examples below, verbs are emboldened, subjects are highlighted in purple, and objects are highlighted in pink. Additionally, prepositions are occasionally italicised. Definition Different v
Definitions Transitive verbs are those which exert an action upon the object. I caught the ball. They asked her. He loves her. Intransitive verbs, on the other hand, describe actions (or states) that
You may have seen this sneaky symbol appear in texts, and maybe you've even used it yourself, but are you using it correctly?! ?! Why the Interrobang?! The Interrobang is used for one of two reasons: