MLA Guide--Erie County Community College

Capitalization Rules

Capitalize all words in the titles of books, articles, etc., but do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), prepositions (for, with, to, etc.) and conjunctions (and/or) unless they are the first word of the title or the first word following a colon

Italics & quotation marks

Use italics for larger works (books, magazine, websites) and quotation marks for smaller works (articles, poems, articles on website)

Examples:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (title of book---preposition (in), article (the) not capitalized

"How to Stay Healthy around Pets" (title of article on CDC website--prepositions (to, around) not capitalized

Months

Abbreviate the names of months longer than 4 letters:

Other common abbreviations