You are viewing all posts tagged capitalization
Whether to capitalize or lowercase the first letter of the first word of a quotation depends on how the quotation is integrated into your prose and what appears in the original. After a Verb of Saying Capitalize the first letter if the quotation appears after a verb of saying, regardless of the case used in . . .
Published 22 May 2018
MLA style’s rules for capitalization are intended to help authors remain consistent while also respecting the ways in which titles have traditionally been styled in different languages. The history of capitalization in titles is complicated, though titles of printed works from earlier eras written in English generally conform to a currently recognizable style. For instance, the . . .
Published 29 April 2018
No. As the MLA Handbook advises, “Unless indicated in square brackets or parentheses, changes must not be made in the spelling, capitalization, or interior punctuation of the source” (75). Let’s say your original source reads as follows: Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. If you need to lowercase the initial letter of the first word . . .
Published 23 April 2018
MLA style spells out the names of centuries in prose and in titles of English-language works, even when the title page uses a numeral: Queen Victoria ruled England for most of the nineteenth century. Music of the Twentieth Century We make an exception and retain the numeral if it precedes an abbreviation in a title: The Ekopolitan . . .
Published 3 April 2018
Do not routinely capitalize the names of dog breeds. Many breed names are composed of proper nouns that you capitalize and generic terms (like retriever or terrier) that you lowercase. Breed names are often composed of a place-name, as in these references to the breed’s country of origin: French bulldog German shepherd Irish setter Portuguese water dog Sometimes . . .
Published 26 March 2018
The MLA Handbook explains that when you refer to an untitled poem known by its first line, you should style the line the way it is shown in the source (68). This guideline applies both to the text and the works-cited list: Dickinson’s poem “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” contrasts the everyday and the momentous. Work Cited Dickinson, . . .
Published 19 January 2018
A modern editorial style keeps capitalization to a minimum. In MLA style, a movement or school of thought is only capitalized when it could be confused with a generic term–for example, Romanticism or New Criticism.
Published 12 January 2018
In our house style, we capitalize the letter in lettered volumes: The Longman Anthology of World Literature. Edited by Jane Tylus and David Damrosch, vol. C, Longman, 2004. A poem by Louise Labé appears in volume C of The Longman Anthology of World Literature.
Published 22 December 2017
If a direct question contained in a sentence is long or has internal punctuation, set the question off with a comma and begin it with a capital letter: The question posed to the MLA editors was, How should a question contained in a sentence be punctuated? The teacher wondered, Will my students ever understand how to incorporate a question . . .
Published 23 March 2018
Whether the label before a contributor’s name–for example, edited by or translated by–is capitalized or lowercase depends on its position in the MLA template of core elements. In the following example, the label is capitalized because the contributor’s name follows the “Title of source” slot. Since the title of a source is always followed by a period, the . . .
Published 31 October 2017
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