Punctuation & Capitalization

Title Capitalization

1 min read

Title Case means you capitalize the important words in a title. It’s the style used in book titles, headings, and most English writing where the title needs to look formal.

What do we capitalize in title case?

Capitalize:

The first word of the title (always)
The first word after a colon or dash (if there is one)
All nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns
All words with four or more letters

Lowercase (keep small):

Short words (three letters or fewer) that are conjunctions (and, but, or)
Articles (a, an, the)
Short prepositions (in, of, on, to, at, by, for)

Examples

Correct: How to Train Your Dragon
Correct: Life Between the Mountains
Incorrect: How To Train Your Dragon (✘ 'To' should be lowercase)

💡 Tip

🔹 Always capitalize the first and last word 🔹 Keep small words lowercase — unless they’re the first word! 🔹 If the word feels important, it probably needs a capital

Test your knowledge 📝

Question 1 sur 8Score: 0/8

Choose the correct title case version.

Discover the app: Shaky English

Join 100,000 people who are improving their English skills on the Shaky English app

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Punctuation & Capitalization

Title Capitalization

1 min read

Title Case means you capitalize the important words in a title. It’s the style used in book titles, headings, and most English writing where the title needs to look formal.

What do we capitalize in title case?

Capitalize:

The first word of the title (always)
The first word after a colon or dash (if there is one)
All nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns
All words with four or more letters

Lowercase (keep small):

Short words (three letters or fewer) that are conjunctions (and, but, or)
Articles (a, an, the)
Short prepositions (in, of, on, to, at, by, for)

Examples

Correct: How to Train Your Dragon
Correct: Life Between the Mountains
Incorrect: How To Train Your Dragon (✘ 'To' should be lowercase)

💡 Tip

🔹 Always capitalize the first and last word 🔹 Keep small words lowercase — unless they’re the first word! 🔹 If the word feels important, it probably needs a capital

Test your knowledge 📝

Question 1 sur 8Score: 0/8

Choose the correct title case version.

Discover the app: Shaky English

Join 100,000 people who are improving their English skills on the Shaky English app

Other similar rules

Conjugation

What is a Preposition?

A preposition is a small word that shows a relationship between other words in a sentence. It often describes direction, location, time, or introduces an object. Common Functions of Prepositions...

Agreement rules

Word Order in Questions

Conjugation

Some vs. Any

A bit of theory

Affect vs. Effect

Let’s make the difference between affect and effect easy to understand! Affect Affect is usually a verb. It means to influence or to make a change. Too much screen time can affect your sleep....

Common confusions

Past vs. Passed

Conjugation

Too vs. Enough

Common confusions

I.e. vs. E.g.

Agreement rules