Modern Language Association
title-case rules

For humanities, literature, language studies.

The MLA rules

The Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook is the standard style guide for literature, language studies, and humanities scholarship in the United States. The current edition (9th, published 2021) governs title capitalization across academic essays, dissertations, conference papers, and journal articles in literary and linguistic fields.

MLA's approach to title case is distinctive among major style guides: it lowercases all prepositions regardless of length, where most other guides only lowercase short prepositions. This single rule is the most common source of differences between MLA-styled titles and titles in AP, Chicago, or APA.

1. Capitalize the first and last word of every title, regardless of part of speech.
2. Capitalize all principal words — nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (because, although, while, if, etc.).
3. Lowercase articles — a, an, the.
4. Lowercase all prepositions regardless of length. This is MLA's signature rule. Of, between, through, under, without, regarding — all lowercased.
5. Lowercase coordinating conjunctions — and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so.
6. Lowercase the word to when used in infinitives ("to be" stays lowercase as "to be").
7. Capitalize the first word after a colon, even if it would otherwise be lowercase under another rule.
8. Capitalize both parts of hyphenated compounds when both parts are principal words ("Self-Reliance"), but lowercase the second part if it's a small word or suffix ("Twenty-first").

How MLA differs from Chicago

MLA and Chicago Manual of Style title case look almost identical to readers, but the rules diverge in three subtle places. First, MLA lowercases all prepositions; Chicago only lowercases prepositions of three letters or fewer (some interpretations) or all prepositions (16th edition and later). Second, MLA capitalizes subordinating conjunctions; Chicago is more permissive. Third, MLA's handling of hyphenated compounds is slightly more conservative — Chicago tends to capitalize both parts more aggressively.

In practice, for short titles you'll rarely notice the difference. For long titles with multiple prepositions, the difference compounds: a title like "The Importance of Being Earnest in the Modern Era" looks the same in both styles, but "The Influence of Greek Philosophy on the Roman Republic" would lowercase "on" in MLA but might capitalize it in some Chicago interpretations.

When MLA style applies

MLA is the default for English literature and language departments, comparative literature programs, modern languages, classics, and most humanities courses. It's also used by some philosophy and history programs, though Chicago is more common there. Outside academia, MLA is rare — journalists use AP, book publishers use Chicago, scientists use APA.

If you're writing an essay for an undergraduate English course, a master's thesis in linguistics, or an article for a humanities journal like PMLA or College English, MLA is almost certainly the expected style. When in doubt, ask your instructor or check the journal's submission guidelines.

Worked examples

The same set of titles, converted under Modern Language Association rules. Try them yourself by switching the style pill on the homepage.

Edge cases we handle

• Proper nouns — iPhone, JavaScript, NASA stay capitalized correctly mid-title.
• Hyphenated compounds — handled per MLA's specific rule.
• After a colon — the first word after a colon is capitalized.
• Acronyms and ALLCAPS runs — preserved as-is.

Frequently asked questions

Source

This page summarizes public guidance from the MLA Handbook. For the complete, authoritative rules, consult the official source directly:

• MLA Style Center — the official reference site maintained by the Modern Language Association

Want to compare with another style? See the style guides index.