Q. What is the difference between sentence case and title case?

Sentence Case

Sentence case is used primarily in APA style for the titles of books, articles, short stories, poems, chapters, blog posts, and web pages. Sentence case means that the first word of the title, the first word of the sub-title, and any proper nouns are capitalized.

Examples:

The title below is the title of a book. Because it's a book title it is italicized and only the first word is capitalized.

The title below is the title of a book. Because it's a book title it is italicized and since "Eleanor Oliphant" is a proper noun (the name of a person), both the first and last names are capitalized and the rest of the title is in lowercase.

The title below is the title of an article in a magazine. Because it's a article title it is in normal font with only the first word of the title and the first word of the subtitle capitalized.

Title Case

With title case the major words of a title are capitalized. Prepositions (like of, on, in, etc.), conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), and artcles (a, an, or the) are lower case but all other words are capitalized. Title case is used in MLA style for all titles. In APA style it's used for the titles of periodicals (journals, magazines, and newspapers) and for website titles.

Examples:

The title below is the title of a periodical; in this case, it is a journal title. This title is italicized in both APA style and MLA Style. Both styles use title case.

The title below is the title of a periodical article; in this case it's the title of an article from a magazine. The APA example is listed above under sentence case. The MLA example is below in title case, normal font, and surrounded by quote marks. Notice that the preposition "of" and the conjunction "or" are lower case.

The title below is the title of a website. This title is in normal font in APA style and italicized in MLA Style. Both styles use title case.

Find Out More

• APA Style 7th ed. Citation
• MLA Style 9th ed. Citation
• How do your format titles in APA Style?
• How do you format titles in MLA Style?

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