GrammarSeries – How to capitalize your article title

grammar

 

If you know us at The Sparkle Writers Hub, then you know how important we think headlines are. It’s not just because they give a synopsis of what the entire article is about but also for their ability to interest or disinterest your intended readers.

While we are not talking about choosing the perfect headline today, we will be focusing on use of capitalization in writing your perfect title.

There are a few styles to use in capitalizing titles.

The First Style

The first is to capitalize the first word of the title, the last word of the title, all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Prepositions and conjunctions are not capitalized except they are used as adverbs or adjectives in the sentence, or they are subordinating conjunctions like although or because.’

For example,

Why You should Drink Milk every Morning

The Second Style 

Another style is to  capitalize the first word of the title, the last word of the title, all  ‘principal’ words and all words longer than three letters.

A  word is principal if it  conveys the major meaning in your sentence.

For example,

Why you should drink Milk every Morning 

The Third Style

Capitalize the first letter of every word. In this style, whether or not the word is principal, you will have to capitalize the first letter of every word.

For example,

Why You Should Drink Milk Every Morning. 

The key to capitalization while using any of these techniques is to know the part of speech each word in your sentence belongs to.

Please note that when writing for publications their house style may be different from what we have highlighted today and as long as you want to continue working with them, you must abide by their rules!

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