What are the Rules for Title Case?

If you’ve ever stared at a headline and thought, “Why is this word capitalized, but that one isn’t?”, you’ve come to the right place. At first glance, title capitalization may seem simple, but you’ll see after reading this article that it may be complicated, actually. People often ask what the rules for title case are, but there isn’t just one simple answer.

Keep reading and finally understand:

• What title case actually means;
• What are the rules for title case, capitalization, headline case; and
• The difference in style guides.

If you want to learn more about title case, also known as headline case, you might want to check out our related article: What Is Title Case? Meaning and Examples!

The first main rule is to capitalize essential words and leave smaller, less important ones in lowercase. However, you’ll notice that what they mean by “important” changes depending on which style guide you follow. That’s why people keep asking what the rules for title case are, even after reading a few online articles.

Most guides agree on a few shared ideas:

• The first and last words are always capitalized;
• Major words usually get capital letters;
• Minor words often don’t, unless they’re emphasized.

This is usually the point where people stop trying to memorize every detail and instead use a title case converter.

Regardless of style, here are the most common rules for title case:

• Capitalize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns;
• Lowercase articles like “a”, “an”, and “the”;
• Lowercase short prepositions and conjunctions (usually);
• Always capitalize the first and last word.

These are the everyday rules for title case capitalization that work well for blog posts, online articles, emails, and general internet content.

Capitalization isn’t the only important thing in a title, though; bolding can also help you emphasize your point. Try out our bold text converter.

Once you step into formal writing, the rules start shifting, and different organizations have created their own versions of rules for title case capitalization, and they don’t always agree.

For instance:

• AP Style capitalizes prepositions with four letters or more;
• Chicago Style lowercases most prepositions, but not all;
• MLA avoids capitalizing prepositions entirely;
• APA has its own logic, especially for academic headings; and
• Legal and medical styles go even further into detail.

Now that you know what the rules for title case are, you may want to check out our italic text converter, which can save you quite some time when styling titles.

In publishing and journalism, headline case is the norm. That’s why news articles, magazines, and blogs tend to have a consistent look, even if the exact rules slightly differ. More often than not, title case prioritizes readability over strict grammatical logic, which is why some short words remain lowercase while others are not.

In practice, many writers mix systems and follow specific rules for title case (but not all). It’s less about perfection and more about consistency.

By the way, if the text you’re starting with is already a mess, like with random caps everywhere, resetting everything with an upper ot lowercase converter can be easier than fixing each word one by one.

The rules for capitalization are not difficult to remember; just keep the following points in mind:

• Is it the first or last word? If so, capitalize it.
• Is it a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or pronoun? Yes. In this case, capitalize it.
• Is it an article (“a”, “an”, “the”)? It is usually written in lowercase.
• Is it a preposition or a short conjunction? Probably lowercase; and
• Does your style guide say otherwise? Then, follow it.

These shortcuts don’t cover every special case, but they handle most real-world scenarios without difficulty.