How should I capitalize the title of a handout?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook.

Capitalize the title of a handout title style; that is, “capitalize the first word, the last word, and all principal words” (MLA Handbook 67). Below are some examples:

Commonly Misspelled Words

Errors Found during Testing

Fire Drill Procedures

How to Search the Web

Since these handouts are stand-alone works, they are styled in italics. A handout that is part of a larger work would be styled in quotation marks—a book chapter, for example:

“Hierarchy” (a chapter from Caroline Levine’s book Forms)

For more on handouts, including handouts without titles, read our posts on class handouts and material from course packs.

Work Cited

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.