Capitalisation in a title.

ConfusedKi · Post by **ConfusedKi** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:46 am

Hello there,
I am currently teaching English in South Korea and a newcomer to this site, so please be gentle with me!

I spent a good few hours yesterday evening browsing through various forums to find an answer to my question, which is: what is the rule on capitalisating the first letter of each word in titles? Recently, a student handed in an essay that had the title, "The Rent and The Two Tenants." I'd corrected to, "The rent and the two tenants." My student then came back to me and asked why this was so, and told me that a previous teacher of hers taught her to capitalise every word in a title except for articles and conjunctions. I'd asked around to a few of my colleagues and their responses were mixed. Some said that you had to capitalise and some said that you shouldn't. I looked at the titles of some books I read and on most of them, the first letter of each word was capitalised. However, one book I had (an English grammar book, no less!) did not.

I am severely confused. I don't know whether to put this one down as an AmE vs BrE difference or the fact that I'm wrong.
Many advance thanks for your help,
Ki

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:14 am

Oh, how interesting. I always thought you were supposed to capitalize the words in a title, except for articles and conjunctions too.

engteacher · Post by **engteacher** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:44 am

There are a number of different styles along with a number of different style guides, but you probably can't go wrong when you teach:

Capitalize content words in titles i.e. nouns, pronouns, principal verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:12 am

That's probably the best basic rule, but a low-key hand written essay, like those we used to do back in the ancient dark ages of the 1980s when I was a schoolboy, perhaps looks better without all the capitals.

ConfusedKi · Post by **ConfusedKi** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:27 am

Please keep the replies coming in!

So, it sounds like to me that both formats are correct? Although, the non-capitalised format is rather outdated? I, also, learnt how to write during the 1980s! Perhaps, this non-capitalised format is something that some British people still use?

This situation reminds me of while vs. whilst!

thanks again to the above posters.
Ki

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue May 13, 2008 8:07 am

Both formats are correct