Title Capitalization Tool

About the Title Capitalization Tool

Paste a title or a heading — or a whole list of them, one per line — and get it capitalized the way your style guide wants: APA, Chicago, AP, MLA, the Bluebook or sentence case. The guides agree on most words but not all: with is lower case in Chicago, MLA and the Bluebook but capitalized in APA and AP, because those two capitalize every word of four letters or more; about is capitalized in Chicago’s 18th edition but stays lower case in MLA, which lower-cases prepositions of any length.

The tool tells you why each word got its capital — first word, last word, a short preposition, a phrasal verb such as set up, an abbreviation kept in capitals — and shows the same title in every style side by side. Words whose part of speech changes the answer (up as an adverb or a preposition, than as a conjunction or a preposition) are marked, and one click switches a word if the guess is wrong for your sentence. Everything runs in your browser.

Common uses

• Headings and the title page of an APA paper, and the titles of works you mention in the text.
• Book, chapter and article titles in Chicago or MLA style, and titles in a works-cited list.
• Blog post and newsletter headlines in AP style, and checking a list of headlines at once.
• Headings of legal memos and briefs that follow the Bluebook.

What each style lower-cases

• APA (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §6.17): only minor words of three letters or fewer — short conjunctions (and, as, but, for, if, nor, or, so, yet), the articles a, an, the and short prepositions (as, at, by, for, in, of, off, on, per, to, up, via). Every word of four letters or more is capitalized, and so is the first word after a colon, an em dash or end punctuation. There is no special rule for the last word. See APA Style: title case.
• Chicago (18th ed., 8.160–8.162): the articles, the conjunctions and, but, for, or, nor, the words to and as, and prepositions of four letters or fewer — unless they are the first or last word of the title or subtitle, or are used as adverbs (Look Up). Since the 18th edition prepositions of five letters or more are capitalized, and so are the parts after a hyphenated prefix (Anti-Intellectual); see what’s new in the 18th edition and the Chicago Q&A on capitalization.
• AP (composition titles): the articles and the prepositions and conjunctions of fewer than four letters, unless they are the first or last word.
• MLA (MLA Handbook, 9th ed.): in the middle of a title, the articles, prepositions of any length (also two-word ones such as according to), the coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet and the to of infinitives; the first and last words are always capitalized. See the MLA Style Center on two-word prepositions and capitalizing titles.
• The Bluebook (21st ed., rule 8(a)): articles, conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless they begin the title or follow a colon. It has no rule for the last word.
• Sentence case: only the first word, the first word after a colon, names and abbreviations.

Words whose job decides the capital

Most guides decide by part of speech, and some small words change jobs:

• up, down, in, out, on, off, over are prepositions in walk up the hill but adverbs in set up, log in or giving up, and adverbs are capitalized. The tool knows several hundred phrasal verbs (in any form: set up, setting up, set-up) and treats a word with no object (Out of Africa, It’s Up to You) as an adverb.
• so and yet are conjunctions after a comma (Small, yet Mighty) and adverbs otherwise (So Much Fun).
• than, as, after, before, since and until are conjunctions when they start a clause (Better Than We Thought) and prepositions otherwise; Chicago and MLA treat the two differently.
• like is a preposition in Fly Like an Eagle and a verb in Things I Like.

When the tool has to guess and the guess changes the result in your style, the word is marked check and the explanation says what the other reading would give. Click the word to switch it.

Hyphens, colons, names and abbreviations

• Hyphenated compounds: the first part is always capitalized, later parts follow the same rules as separate words — Self-Report, Well-Written, Up-to-Date, Step-by-Step, Built-In.
• Colons start a subtitle, whose first word APA, Chicago, MLA and the Bluebook capitalize (AP’s title rules do not mention subtitles; the tool treats them the same way). The word before the colon counts as the last word of the title in Chicago, AP and MLA.
• Abbreviations and brand names written with capitals (NASA, LOL, iPhone) are kept as typed. Well-known abbreviations typed in lower case (ai, seo, covid) are written in capitals, and common brand names typed in lower case get their own capitals back (youtube → YouTube, ios → iOS). A title typed entirely in capitals is read as ordinary words, keeping only well-known abbreviations (CEO, NASA).
• Numerals and names: I is always a capital, Roman numerals are written in capitals (World War II, Henry VIII), and Mc and O’ surnames get their second capital (McDonald, O’Neill). Name particles typed in lower case between names (Leonardo da Vinci, Ludwig van Beethoven) stay lower case; web addresses, file names, handles and hashtags are left alone.

Limitations

• English titles only. MLA and Chicago use sentence-style capitals for titles in most other languages.
• Parts of speech are read from the neighbouring words, not from a dictionary of every sentence: a few words (marked check) can be read the wrong way. Click them to switch.
• In sentence case the tool keeps the names of languages, peoples, countries, continents, religions and holidays (English, the United States, Christmas); other names — people, places, organizations — are recognized only when they are capitalized in an otherwise lower-case title.
• Species names (Homo sapiens), other names with unusual capitals and the special words of legal headings (Bluebook rule 8(b)) are not detected; switch them by hand.
• The AP Stylebook and the Bluebook are not freely available online; the tool applies the title rules they publish, quoted above.

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