how do i write book title in an essay mla

How to Write a Book Title in MLA Formatting

by Joe Bunting | 2 comments

You're writing a paper for school and suddenly you stop in the middle of the sentence. You have to write a book title, but you don't how to format it. How do you format a book title in MLA style? Good news: you're in the write place (sorry, I had to).

In this post, we'll talk about MLA style and formatting, whether it's appropriate for your project, and most importantly, how to write a book title in MLA style.

What Is MLA?

MLA stands for Modern Language Association, a society primarily based in the United States but with international standing, that has a mission to “strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature”. Founded in the late 1800s by an American novelist and professor, MLA publishes a set of resources used by students and teachers, including the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers .

The MLA handbook is one of the main style manuals for students and scholars in the world, especially for anyone studying literature, film, or theater.

Should You Format Based on MLA Style?

If you're writing a paper for a class in literature, theater, or film, absolutely use MLA style. Outside of that, it depends. Here are the most frequent style guides associated with various disciplines:

• Literature, Film, Theater:   MLA
• Psychology:   APA
• Science (Physics, Biology, Chemistry): CSE or APA
• Journalism:   AP
• Mathematics:   AMA
• Publishing:   Chicago

You can find a full list of international style guides here .

Now that you know if you should be using MLA style, how do you format a book title with it?

How to Format a Book Title in MLA Style: Example

In MLA style, book titles are italicized, as so:

Henry Thorough argues in Walden  that the best life is lived in deliberate simplicity so as to discover what life truly is about.

In fact, most style guides, including MLA and   Chicago style, require book titles to be italicized , not underlined.

If the book title has a subtitle, the subtitle should be italicized as well and separated by a colon to be formatted correctly for MLA style, as in:

Natural History of the Intellect: the last lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Should You Underline Book Titles in MLA Style?

If you are using MLA style, you should not underline book titles. Instead, italicize the titles.

However, AP style, the guide used by journalists, suggests putting titles in quotation marks, not italicization.

Still, I wouldn't recommend underlining a book's title. In fact, I couldn't find a single style guide that requires book titles to be underlined, but if you know of one that does, let me know in the comments!

Which style guide do you use most? MLA? Chicago? APA? AP? Or do you just write based on your own rules?!  Let me know in the comments .

Let's cement this formatting lesson in our minds by putting it to use right away with the following writing exercise .

What are your favorite books of all time? Write about what you love about them and why they are your favorites for fifteen minutes . Make sure to use the correct formatting for each title!

When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section . And if you post, please be sure to read a few practices by other writers and share your feedback with them.

Happy writing!

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

how do you format the title if you’re writing on paper and can’t italicize?

When writing by hand, you can underline book titles.

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MLA Works Cited Page: Books

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When you are gathering book sources, be sure to make note of the following bibliographic items: the author name(s), other contributors such as translators or editors, the book’s title, editions of the book, the publication date, the publisher, and the pagination.

The 8 th  edition of the MLA handbook highlights principles over prescriptive practices. Essentially, a writer will need to take note of primary elements in every source, such as author, title, etc. and then assort them in a general format. Thus, by using this methodology, a writer will be able to cite any source regardless of whether it’s included in this list.

Please note these changes in the new edition:

• Commas are used instead of periods between Publisher, Publication Date, and Pagination.
• Medium is no longer necessary.
• Containers are now a part of the MLA process. Commas should be used after container titles.
• DOIs should be used instead of URLS when available.
• Use the term “Accessed” instead of listing the date or the abbreviation, “n.d."

Below is the general format for any citation:

Author. Title. Title of container (do not list container for standalone books, e.g. novels), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs URL or DOI). 2 nd  container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).

Basic Book Format

The author’s name or a book with a single author's name appears in last name, first name format. The basic form for a book citation is:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.

* Note: the City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown in North America.

Book with One Author

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science . Penguin, 1987.

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.

Book with More Than One Author

When a book has two authors, order the authors in the same way they are presented in the book. Start by listing the first name that appears on the book in last name, first name format; subsequent author names appear in normal order (first name last name format).

Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring . Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

If there are three or more authors, list only the first author followed by the phrase et al. (Latin for "and others") in place of the subsequent authors' names. (Note that there is a period after “al” in “et al.” Also note that there is never a period after the “et” in “et al.”).

Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition . Utah State UP, 2004.

Two or More Books by the Same Author

List works alphabetically by title. (Remember to ignore articles like A, An, and The.) Provide the author’s name in last name, first name format for the first entry only. For each subsequent entry by the same author, use three hyphens and a period.

Palmer, William J. Dickens and New Historicism . St. Martin's, 1997.

---. The Films of the Eighties: A Social History . Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

Book by a Corporate Author or Organization

A corporate author may include a commission, a committee, a government agency, or a group that does not identify individual members on the title page.

List the names of corporate authors in the place where an author’s name typically appears at the beginning of the entry.

American Allergy Association. Allergies in Children . Random House, 1998.

When the author and publisher are the same, skip the author, and list the title first. Then, list the corporate author only as the publisher.

Fair Housing—Fair Lending. Aspen Law & Business, 1985.

Book with No Author

List by title of the book. Incorporate these entries alphabetically just as you would with works that include an author name. For example, the following entry might appear between entries of works written by Dean, Shaun and Forsythe, Jonathan.

Encyclopedia of Indiana . Somerset, 1993.

Remember that for an in-text (parenthetical) citation of a book with no author, you should provide the name of the work in the signal phrase and the page number in parentheses. You may also use a shortened version of the title of the book accompanied by the page number. For more information see the In-text Citations for Print Sources with No Known Author section of In-text Citations: The Basics .

A Translated Book

If you want to emphasize the work rather than the translator, cite as you would any other book. Add “translated by” and follow with the name(s) of the translator(s).

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason . Translated by Richard Howard, Vintage-Random House, 1988.

If you want to focus on the translation, list the translator as the author. In place of the author’s name, the translator’s name appears. His or her name is followed by the label, “translator.” If the author of the book does not appear in the title of the book, include the name, with a “By” after the title of the book and before the publisher. Note that this type of citation is less common and should only be used for papers or writing in which translation plays a central role.

Howard, Richard, translator. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason . By Michel Foucault, Vintage-Random House, 1988.

Republished Book

Books may be republished due to popularity without becoming a new edition. New editions are typically revisions of the original work. For books that originally appeared at an earlier date and that have been republished at a later one, insert the original publication date before the publication information.

For books that are new editions (i.e. different from the first or other editions of the book), see An Edition of a Book below.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble . 1990. Routledge, 1999.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine . 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.

An Edition of a Book

There are two types of editions in book publishing: a book that has been published more than once in different editions and a book that is prepared by someone other than the author (typically an editor).

A Subsequent Edition

Cite the book as you normally would, but add the number of the edition after the title.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students . 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.

A Work Prepared by an Editor

Cite the book as you normally would, but add the editor after the title with the label "edited by."

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre,  edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford UP, 1998.

Note that the format for citing sources with important contributors with editor-like roles follows the same basic template:

...adapted by John Doe...

Finally, in the event that the source features a contributor that cannot be described with a past-tense verb and the word "by" (e.g., "edited by"), you may instead use a noun followed by a comma, like so:

...guest editor, Jane Smith...

Anthology or Collection (e.g. Collection of Essays)

To cite the entire anthology or collection, list by editor(s) followed by a comma and "editor" or, for multiple editors, "editors." This sort of entry is somewhat rare. If you are citing a particular piece within an anthology or collection (more common), see A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection below.

Hill, Charles A., and Marguerite Helmers, editors. Defining Visual Rhetorics . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.

Peterson, Nancy J., editor. Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches . Johns Hopkins UP, 1997.

A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

Works may include an essay in an edited collection or anthology, or a chapter of a book. The basic form is for this sort of citation is as follows:

Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection , edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

Some examples:

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One , edited by Ben Rafoth, Heinemann, 2000, pp. 24-34.

Swanson, Gunnar. "Graphic Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and The 'Real World.'" The Education of a Graphic Designer , edited by Steven Heller, Allworth Press, 1998, pp. 13-24.

Note on Cross-referencing Several Items from One Anthology: If you cite more than one essay from the same edited collection, MLA indicates you may cross-reference within your works cited list in order to avoid writing out the publishing information for each separate essay. You should consider this option if you have several references from a single text. To do so, include a separate entry for the entire collection listed by the editor's name as below:

Rose, Shirley K, and Irwin Weiser, editors. The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher . Heinemann, 1999.

Then, for each individual essay from the collection, list the author's name in last name, first name format, the title of the essay, the editor's last name, and the page range:

L'Eplattenier, Barbara. "Finding Ourselves in the Past: An Argument for Historical Work on WPAs." Rose and Weiser, pp. 131-40.

Peeples, Tim. "'Seeing' the WPA With/Through Postmodern Mapping." Rose and Weiser, pp. 153-67.

Please note: When cross-referencing items in the works cited list, alphabetical order should be maintained for the entire list.

Poem or Short Story Examples :

Burns, Robert. "Red, Red Rose." 100 Best-Loved Poems, edited by Philip Smith, Dover, 1995, p. 26.

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories , edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.

If the specific literary work is part of the author's own collection (all of the works have the same author), then there will be no editor to reference:

Whitman, Walt. "I Sing the Body Electric." Selected Poems, Dover, 1991, pp. 12-19.

Carter, Angela. "The Tiger's Bride." Burning Your Boats: The Collected Stories, Penguin, 1995, pp. 154-69.

Article in a Reference Book (e.g. Encyclopedias, Dictionaries)

For entries in encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference works, cite the entry name as you would any other work in a collection but do not include the publisher information. Also, if the reference book is organized alphabetically, as most are, do not list the volume or the page number of the article or item.

"Ideology." The American Heritage Dictionary.  3rd ed. 1997. 

A Multivolume Work

When citing only one volume of a multivolume work, include the volume number after the work's title, or after the work's editor or translator.

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria . Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.

When citing more than one volume of a multivolume work, cite the total number of volumes in the work. Also, be sure in your in-text citation to provide both the volume number and page number(s) ( see "Citing Multivolume Works" on our in-text citations resource .)

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria . Translated by H. E. Butler, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980. 4 vols.

If the volume you are using has its own title, cite the book without referring to the other volumes as if it were an independent publication.

Churchill, Winston S. The Age of Revolution . Dodd, 1957.

An Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword

When citing an introduction, a preface, a foreword, or an afterword, write the name of the author(s) of the piece you are citing. Then give the name of the part being cited, which should not be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks; in italics, provide the name of the work and the name of the author of the introduction/preface/foreword/afterword. Finish the citation with the details of publication and page range.

Farrell, Thomas B. Introduction. Norms of Rhetorical Culture , by Farrell, Yale UP, 1993, pp. 1-13.

If the writer of the piece is different from the author of the complete work , then write the full name of the principal work's author after the word "By." For example, if you were to cite Hugh Dalziel Duncan’s introduction of Kenneth Burke’s book Permanence and Change, you would write the entry as follows:

Duncan, Hugh Dalziel. Introduction. Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose, by Kenneth Burke, 1935, 3rd ed., U of California P, 1984, pp. xiii-xliv.

Book Published Before 1900

Original copies of books published before 1900 are usually defined by their place of publication rather than the publisher. Unless you are using a newer edition, cite the city of publication where you would normally cite the publisher.

Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.

Italicize “The Bible” and follow it with the version you are using. Remember that your in-text (parenthetical citation) should include the name of the specific edition of the Bible, followed by an abbreviation of the book, the chapter and verse(s). (See Citing the Bible at In-Text Citations: The Basics .)

The Bible. Authorized King James Version , Oxford UP, 1998.

The Bible. The New Oxford Annotated Version , 3rd ed., Oxford UP, 2001.

The New Jerusalem Bible. Edited by Susan Jones, Doubleday, 1985.

A Government Publication

Cite the author of the publication if the author is identified. Otherwise, start with the name of the national government, followed by the agency (including any subdivisions or agencies) that serves as the organizational author. For congressional documents, be sure to include the number of the Congress and the session when the hearing was held or resolution passed as well as the report number. US government documents are typically published by the Government Printing Office.

United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Hearing on the Geopolitics of Oil . Government Printing Office, 2007. 110th Congress, 1st session, Senate Report 111-8.

United States, Government Accountability Office. Climate Change: EPA and DOE Should Do More to Encourage Progress Under Two Voluntary Programs . Government Printing Office, 2006.

Cite the title and publication information for the pamphlet just as you would a book without an author. Pamphlets and promotional materials commonly feature corporate authors (commissions, committees, or other groups that does not provide individual group member names). If the pamphlet you are citing has no author, cite as directed below. If your pamphlet has an author or a corporate author, put the name of the author (last name, first name format) or corporate author in the place where the author name typically appears at the beginning of the entry. (See also Books by a Corporate Author or Organization above.)

Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.

Your Rights Under California Welfare Programs . California Department of Social Services, 2007.

Dissertations and Master's Theses

Dissertations and master's theses may be used as sources whether published or not. Unlike previous editions, MLA 8 specifies no difference in style for published/unpublished works.

The main elements of a dissertation citation are the same as those for a book: author name(s), title (italicized) , and publication date. Conclude with an indication of the document type (e.g., "PhD dissertation"). The degree-granting institution may be included before the document type (though this is not required). If the dissertation was accessed through an online repository, include it as the second container after all the other elements.

Bishop, Karen Lynn. Documenting Institutional Identity: Strategic Writing in the IUPUI Comprehensive Campaign . 2002. Purdue University, PhD dissertation.

Bile, Jeffrey. Ecology, Feminism, and a Revised Critical Rhetoric: Toward a Dialectical Partnership . 2005. Ohio University, PhD dissertation.

Mitchell, Mark. The Impact of Product Quality Reducing Events on the Value of Brand-Name Capital: Evidence from Airline Crashes and the 1982 Tylenol Poisonings.  1987. PhD dissertation.  ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

List the names of corporate authors in the place where an author’s name typically appears at the beginning of the entry if the author and publisher are not the same.

Fair Housing—Fair Lending. Aspen Law & Business, 1985.

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MLA Style Guide Eighth Edition

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Title of Source. The title is usually taken from an authoritative location in the source such as the title page. It is the name of the source you are using. Capitalize the following parts of speech in a title: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subordinating conjunctions (although, because, unless, after, until, when, where, while, etc.). Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, the "to" in infinitives if they appear in the middle of the title. A colon separates the title from the subtitle unless it ends in a question mark or exclamation. Titles should be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks. Titles that are independent and self-contained (e.g., books) and titles of containers (e.g., anthologies) should be italicized. Titles that are contained in larger works (e.g., short stories) should be in quotation s. Exceptions to the above rule are: 1) Scripture (Genesis, Bible, Gospels, Upanishads, Old Testament, Talmud, etc.) Titles of individualized scripture writings, however, should be italicized and treated like any other published work.(e.g. The Interlinear Bible) 2) Names of laws, acts and political documents (Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Treaty of Marseilles, etc.) 3) Musical compositions identified by form, number, and key (Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A, op. 92) 4) Series titles (Critical American Studies, Bollingen Series, etc.) 5) Conferences, seminars, workshops, and courses (MLA Annual Convention, English 110)

The title of the work follows the author and ends with a period . Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind . New York: Macmillan, 1961.

A sub-title is included after the main title . Joyce, Michael. Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture. U of Michigan P, 2000. Baron, Sabrina Alcorn et al., editors. Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of               Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 2007.

The title of a story, poem or essay in a collection, as part of a larger whole, is placed in quotation marks . Dewar, James A., and Peng Hwa Ang. "The Cultural Consequences of Printing and the Internet." Agent of Change: Print             Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress,             2007, pp. 365-77. 

Independent work in a collection When a work that is normally independent (such as a novel or play) appears in a collection, the work's title remains in italics. Euripides. The Trojan Women . Ten Plays, translated by Paul Roche, New American Library, 1998, pp. 457-512.

The title of a periodical (journal, magazine, or newspaper) is in italics and the title of the article is in quotation marks. Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010           pp. 69-88. Note: This rule applies to all media forms such as the title of a television series, an episode in a television series, a song or piece of music in an album, a posting or article on a web page. See examples below. Television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Episode in a television series "Hush." Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah           Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. So Many Books . 2003-13, somanybooksbkog.com Note: When giving a URL, omit http and https. Posting of an article on a web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print."           So Many Books, 25 April 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-           and-print/. A song or piece of music in an album Beyonce. "Pretty Hurts." Beyonce , Parkwood Entertainment, 2013,           www.beyonce.com/album/beyonce/?media_view=songs.

Untitled Source In the place of the title, provide a generic description of the source without italics or quotation marks. Capitalize the first word in the title and any proper nouns in it. Mackintosh, Charles Rennie. Chair of Stained Oak. 1897-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Comment or review of a title in an online forum Jeane. Comment on "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013,            10:30 p.m., somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-            print/#comment-83030

Review of a title in an online forum Mackin, Joseph. Review of The Pleasures of Reading of an age of Distraction , by Alan Jacobs. New York Journal of Books, 2 June 2011, www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/            pleasures-reading-age-distraction.

Tweet Reproduce the full text without changing anything and enclose within quotation marks. @persiankiwi."We have report of large street battles in east and west of Tehran now. - #Iranelection." Twitter ,            23 June 2009, 11:15 a.m., twitter.com/persianwiki/status/2298106072.

E-mail message Use subject as the title. Subject is enclosed in quotation marks. Boyle, Anthony T. "Re: Utopia." Received by Daniel J. Cayhill, 21 June 1997.

Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword Capitalize the term in the works cited list but do not italicize or enclose in quotation marks. The term need not be capitalized in in-text discussion. Felstiner, John. Preface. Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan , by Paul Celan, translated by Felstiner              W.W. Norton, 2001, pp.xix-xxxvi.

Translations of Titles Place translations of titles for foreign works in square brackets in the works cited list. The translation appears next to the title.

Shortened titles The first time a title is mentioned in your work, it should appear in full. If the title is repeated in the work, it can be shortened to a familiar one (e.g., Skylark for Ode to a Skylark).

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How to Write Book Titles in MLA

Last Updated: September 5, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Annaliese Dunne and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Annaliese Dunne is a Middle School English Teacher. With over 10 years of teaching experience, her areas of expertise include writing and grammar instruction, as well as teaching reading comprehension. She is also an experienced freelance writer. She received her Bachelor's degree in English. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 50,557 times.

If you're writing a research paper, you may want to include the title of a book in the text of your paper. The handbook for the Modern Language Association (MLA) provides specific rules for how to set off the title of a book from the rest of your text. Generally, titles of books are set apart from the rest of the text following particular formatting, capitalization, and punctuation rules.

Formatting Titles

• Music album titles and film titles are also italicized.
• In earlier editions, the MLA Handbook also permitted titles to be underlined. The 8th edition confirms that underlining is no longer appropriate.

Exception : Religious texts, such as the Bible or the Quran, are not italicized.

• For example, you might write: "In The Great Gatsby in the Classroom: Searching for the American Dream , David Dowling promotes the use of art and film to improve literacy."

• For example, if you were talking about the Nancy Drew series, you would not italicize "Nancy Drew" because the name does not appear in the titles of any of the individual books. In contrast, Harry Potter would be italicized, because the name appears at the beginning of the title of every book in the series.

• For example, if you were writing a paper on The Great Gatsby , you would need to include the full title in your text at least once. If you mentioned the novel more than once, you could use Gatsby as a shortened title.
• How you shorten the title generally depends on your own judgment. Use a word or words that evoke the title easily in the mind of the reader, without any ambiguity.

Capitalizing Titles

• For example, you might write: "Comedian Steve Martin takes on the art world in his novel An Object of Beauty . Note that the word "an" is capitalized because it is the first word. Otherwise, it would be in lowercase.
• If the book also has a subtitle, capitalize the first word of the subtitle just as you did the first word of the title.

• Articles include words such as "a," "an," and "the." Words such as "against," "in," and "to." Note that these words remain in lowercase regardless of their length.

• Coordinating conjunctions include words such as "and," "but," "for," and "nor."
• Subordinating conjunctions include words such as "after," "although," because," "unless," and "until."

• Example: Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature

Tip: If you have doubts about the parts of speech of the words in a title, you can check your capitalization using free capitalization checkers available online.

• Capitalize all words that would be capitalized in the language the title is written in. For example, since all nouns are capitalized in German, you would capitalize all nouns in a German book title.

Punctuating Titles

• For example, if a title ends in an exclamation point or a question mark, you would include that punctuation mark at the end of the title. The punctuation mark should be italicized so that your readers understand that it's part of the title, not part of your punctuation.
• If the book title ends in a question mark or an exclamation point, it's typically not a good idea to use that title at the end of a sentence, because then the punctuation mark at the end of the book title effectively becomes the punctuation mark for the end of your sentence. Recast your sentence so that the book title doesn't fall at the end of the sentence.

• There is an exception if the book title includes another book title, and the included book title ends in a question mark or exclamation point. Since that punctuation mark belongs to the included book title, you would follow that punctuation mark with a colon. For example: Moby Dick and Absalom, Absalom! : Two American Masterpieces Note that the colon is italicized.

• For example, you might write: "In the 1980s sitcom When Harry Met Sally. . . , the characters examined whether heterosexual cisgender men and women could be friends without ever becoming romantically or sexually involved."
• Note that you'll have to form your sentence so that either a comma or a period is appropriate following the ellipsis or a dash.

Tip: Although it might be difficult for the average person to tell whether a punctuation mark such as a comma or period is italicized, technically any punctuation added to the end of the title should not be italicized.

• For example: England's Monitor; or, The History of Separation . Note that the "or" and all punctuation are also italicized.
• Generally, list the original or oldest title first, followed by any later title.

• For example, since the book Everything Is Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe was published in London, the serial comma would not be added. However, if the book were published in the US, you would add a comma after the word "Revolution."

Expert Q&A

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Expert Interview

Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about writing, check out our in-depth interview with Annaliese Dunne .

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_about_literature/formatting.html
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/punctuation-with-titles/
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/trilogy-titles/
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/full-names-titles-in-each-chapter/
• ↑ https://secondary.oslis.org/cite-sources/mla/how-to-capitalize-and-punctuate-titles
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/capitalization-of-titles/
• ↑ https://irsc.libguides.com/c.php?g=483085&p=3303403

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How Do You Write the Title of a Book in MLA Style?

Have you read “ Italics and Underlining: Titles of Books ,” an article we published on TheWordCounter.com in May? 

Take a look at the previous sentence. In it, we’ve made use of the Modern Language Association’s guidelines for writing titles. Because the article is a part of a whole, meaning it’s a small part of a larger website , its title should be put in quotation marks. The larger work, the website, must be italicized. 

To take a step back, it’s important to understand that many different style guides exist, and they all give advice about how to format your writing, address grammar concerns, and provide information about the source material you use. Within the context of academic writing, often a teacher will give an assignment and specify which style guide you should use. Similarly—if you’re planning to publish your writing—journals, publishing companies, and editors may have strong preferences about formatting. At other times, you may be able to select a style guide based on your own preferences. 

For the purpose of this article, let’s assume that you’ve been assigned (or have chosen to write) a short essay in MLA format. If that’s the case, what do you need to know about writing titles?

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Works Cited

To begin, you’ll need to include a Works Cited section for your essay, as long as you have source material that you’re planning to quote or paraphrase. Let’s begin by looking at a standard citation for a book in MLA format. 

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . Publisher, Publication Date. 

Notice that the title of the book is italicized. 

You would also use italics for other forms of media cited in their entirety: 

• News publications
• Anthologies

When you write the title, remember that the rules for capitalizing can be tricky. For MLA, title case requires that you capitalize the first word of the title and any subtitles, capitalize all principal words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns), and capitalize all the words that contain four letters or more. If you use a hyphenated word, be sure to capitalize the second part that comes after the hyphen. When the title has a subtitle, be sure to include a colon and a space between the main title and the subtitle. 

To review, here are a few fictional titles, along with the proper title case for MLA style:

• New York in the Spring: A Guide to Snacking
• Hot-Headedness and Anger From a Toddler’s Perspective
• The Unofficial Grammar Bible

In-Text Citations

For an in-text citation, you would simply follow your quotation or paraphrase with a parenthetical notation. Provide the reader with the author’s last name and the page number. This way, if the reader wants to review the source material that you used, he or she can find the book in the Works Cited section of your essay, and then look at the referenced page directly. 

When you use a parenthetical citation in this manner, you do not necessarily need to write the title of the book in your prose. That said, it is common to include the title of the book in your research paper or essay, especially the first time you refer to the book, in order to provide additional context for the quotation or paraphrase. If you include the author’s name in your prose, there is no need to repeat it in the in-text citation. 

Here are examples of both styles of in-text citation. 

• As Rick Hawthorne explains in Coordinating Conjunctions for Fun , “Grammar can be amazing” (75).
• According to a prominent linguistics professor, “Grammar can be amazing” (Hawthorne 75). 

In the examples above, you can see that including the title of the book may add context, but it is not necessary when you provide the in-text citation. If you choose to include the title, you should use the same title case and formatting that you use in the Works Cited section of your paper. 

What Titles Need Quotation Marks?

As a general rule, the titles that require quotation marks involve a partial work. For example, a chapter in a book only makes up part of a larger work. 

Based on the MLA handbook, we’ve created a list of media that fits into the “part of a whole” classification. Next to those titles, we’ve listed examples of the complete works, written in all capital letters. 

• Book chapters | BOOK TITLE
• Web pages | WEBSITE NAME
• News, magazine, and journal articles | NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE, or JOURNAL TITLE
• TV episodes | TV SHOW TITLE
• Songs | ALBUM TITLE
• Short stories | ANTHOLOGY TITLE
• Poems | ANTHOLOGY TITLE
• Online videos | WEBSITE NAME

Of the items in the list above, the first set of titles should be written within a pair of quotation marks. The capitalized set of titles should be written with italics. 

Special Circumstances

There are a few situations that necessitate special rules. 

• When a work has no author, the title should be used in the place of the author’s last name for the in-text citation. Do not include subtitles in the in-text citation. If the full title is long, you may abbreviate it by dropping articles and prepositions, but you must maintain the first word as it’s alphabetized in your Works Cited. 
• When you quote or paraphrase from a chapter in an anthology or reference book, be sure to include the chapter title in your Works Cited list, between the author’s name and the name of the full work. 
• Add the English translation of a foreign-language title in brackets in your Works Cited, and add it in parentheses in your prose.
•  Although the following words and phrases describe parts of a work, they should not be confused with unique titles: preface, introduction, works cited, appendix, scene, stanza, chapter, bibliography, act, index. Since they are not titles, section names do not need to be put in quotations. 
• Musical compositions, laws, and religious scripture do not receive the same treatment as other titles. When in doubt, refer to the Modern Language Association for special exceptions. 
• When you come across a title within a title, use quotation marks or italics as normal. Quotes within quotes employ single quotes, and italics within italics revert back to non-italicized text. For example, if you have the title of a poem that appears within the title of a chapter, you would use single quotation marks within double quotation marks: “Understanding Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself'”. 
• For a title that ends in a question mark, there’s no need to add a colon before the subtitle. 
• According to the 8th edition of the MLA guidelines, you no longer need to include the city of publication for books published after 1900. For an older book, your citation should include that information.
• https://irsc.libguides.com/mla/intextexamples#
• https://www.scribbr.com/mla/titles/
• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html
• https://www.mla.org/MLA-Style
• ​ https://libguides.css.edu/c.php?g=41682&p=265033

Kari Lisa Johnson

I’m an award-winning playwright with a penchant for wordplay. After earning a perfect score on the Writing SAT, I worked my way through Brown University by moonlighting as a Kaplan Test Prep tutor. I received a BA with honors in Literary Arts (Playwriting)—which gave me the opportunity to study under Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel. In my previous roles as new media producer with Rosetta Stone, director of marketing for global ventures with The Juilliard School, and vice president of digital strategy with Up & Coming Media, I helped develop the voice for international brands. From my home office in Maui, Hawaii, I currently work on freelance and ghostwriting projects.

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