Titles of Works — Underline or Italicize?
Are book titles italicized?
Formatting the title of a book in writing depends upon style rather than grammar. The two most common ways to do so are by underlining or italicizing it. Since the advent of the computer, italicizing book titles has become much more common, while underlining is more outdated.
Book titles are more commonly italicized when using a computer.
Underlining book titles is more common when using pen/pencil and paper.
When to italicize book titles
The titles of books should be italicized when using a computer/word processing program. Most works are considered long enough to be classified as a book if they contain more than 50,000 words, although this number can vary slightly.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Novellas are also classified as books, typically ranging from 10,000–40,000 words.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Other titles that should be italicized include plays, newspapers, paintings, and website names.
Epic poems
The Odyssey by Homer
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Plays
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Magazines
National Geographic
People
Newspapers
The New York Times
USA Today
Movies
It’s a Wonderful Life
Back to the Future
TV Shows
Friends
The Big Bang Theory
Paintings
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
Musical albums
The White Album by The Beatles
The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
Ships/Planes/Trains
Air Force One
Titanic
Video games
Super Mario Bros.
Pac-Man
Website name (not the URL)
Google
Yahoo!
When to underline book titles
Before computers and word processing programs, the titles of books were underlined rather than italicized. Underlining allowed writers to emphasize the titles of books, as italics were not an option because most writing was done by hand. Even when typewriters began to become prominent, they still were not able to italicize words.
As computers and the Internet became a part of everyday life, book titles were italicized to distinguish them from hyperlinks, which are also underlined.
Writers should avoid attempting to handwrite a title in italics because readers may not be able to recognize the difference between handwritten italics and other handwritten text. Underlining removes that confusion.
Quotation marks and titles
Quotation marks are used for the titles of shorter works. To determine if a work is “short,” check to see if it is contained within a larger work. For example, the title of a newspaper article would be placed within quotation marks, while the newspaper's title would be italicized.
Examples of works set in quotation marks include poems, articles, book chapters, and speeches.
Short poems
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
“How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Short stories (less than 7,500 words)
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Articles in newspapers and magazines
“Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg” (New York Times)
“The First Footstep” (Evening Standard – Man steps foot on the moon)
Encyclopedia entries
“Climate”
“Social media”
Blog entries
“Where to Find Success”
“How to Make Money Fast”
Book chapters
“The Prison-Door” (The Scarlet Letter)
“The Sound of the Shell (The Lord of the Flies)
TV episode titles
“A Hard Day’s Night” (Grey’s Anatomy)
“The One with the Football” (Friends)
Songs
“Respect” by Aretha Franklin
“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen
Speeches
“I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Luckiest Man” by Lou Gehrig
An exception to the rule for italicizing titles of longer works is books in a series. If there is a novel series where each book is contained in one volume, then the book’s title would be italicized, with each individual story placed in quotation marks.
Harry Potter Series
“Sorcerer’s Stone”
“Chamber of Secrets”
“Prisoner of Azkaban”
“Goblet of Fire”
“Order of the Phoenix”
“Half-Blood Prince”
“Deathly Hallows”