As a refresher recall that movie titles are italicized when you're using a word processing program such as MS Word. Any longer work like a movie, television series, or book title is italicized. Shorter works like short stories, poems, and articles go in quotes. Episode titles within longer works are put in quotes.
1) The Shawshank Redemption is perhaps the best adaptation of a Stephen King work.
2) It's a shame that Get Out never won the Oscar for best picture it surely deserved.
3) I can't decide whether to go see Hidden Figures or A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
4) I've always thought that The Dozens is the funniest episode of Blackish.
5) Do you think that Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare's greatest play?
6) The poem Peanut Butter Sandwich has always been Kevin's favorite—it's one of the best in Where The Sidewalk Ends.
7) It's not until Chapter 94, A Squeeze of the Hand, that we see how the sailors in Moby-Dick process the whale's spermaceti.
8) Halfway through the article Business Leaders Meet with Mayor and Counsel you can read more about why the town is in need of funding.
Write 3 of your own sentences talking about movies you love or have seen recently, making sure to format the titles properly.
If writing by hand, the movie title has to be underlined. If the paper is written in the field of journalism, the movie title must be in quotes.
If writing by hand, the title of a short film needs to be underlined. If writing a paper using a computer, the title must be italicized.
According to most style guides, a movie title must be italicized. If the essay is written by hand, the title must be underlined.
Movie titles, as well as television and radio shows, are always capitalized. They must be capitalized according to the case capitalization conventions.
When preparing academic papers, or any other forms of writings, sometimes there is a need to write a movie title. Therefore, it is important to know how to write movie titles in papers or any other forms of writing. Therefore, it is important to know how to write a movie title in the correct format in an essay or any other form of writing. Below is information regarding writing movie titles in essays. Topics such as italicizing movie titles, underlining movie titles, quoting movie titles, and punctuating movie titles will be addressed.
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There are many questions regarding how to write movie titles. Some of the most common questions are: Are movie titles italicized? Do you underline movie titles? Are movie titles placed in quotes? Are film titles italicized? These questions are covered throughout this lesson.
Years ago, when writers would use typewriters to write their essays and formal papers, movie titles had to be underlined. However, with the ubiquity of computers, underlining the movie titles has become obsolete. The only exception is in handwritten papers where people can hardly italicize their handwriting. Therefore, the best-advised practice is to underline film titles when writing a paper by hand.
Today, the most common practice when writing an academic paper containing a movie title is to italicize it. The use of computers for writing has made this practice a common one because writers can easily italicize the titles of movies. Furthermore, it is important to apply the case capitalization conventions when writing movie titles.
According to the case capitalization conventions,
The 2012 Oscar for the best foreign-language film went to A Separation by Asghar Farhadi.
Although a is an article, it is capitalized as it is the first word in the title. The only other word of the title separation is also capitalized. The whole title is italicized.
The APA, MLA, and Chicago Style guides ask the movie titles to be in italics while adhering to case capitalization conventions. In addition to film titles, the titles of television and radio shows must also be italicized.
The answer to the frequently asked question "Do you underline movie titles?" is no for most academic style guides. However, there is one exception where writers need to underline a movie title. That is when the writer has to write an essay or any other type of writings by hand because they can not hand-write in italics.
In handwritten essays, the movie title is underlined.
In journalism, the common style guide to be followed is AP from the guidelines by Associated Press Stylebook. According to the AP Style guide, movie titles should not be italicized, but instead, they should be placed between quotations. This must be done while adhering to the case capitalization conventions. If the movie title has any punctuations, they should stay intact inside the quotation marks.
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Writers often wonder how to write movie titles in quotes. In academic writings, when quoting other writers, if there is a movie title in the quotation, it must be italicized. It is important to know that the movie title itself should not be placed between quotations.
Movie titles must be italicized in academic essays.
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Regarding movie titles, writers often wonder how to punctuate movie titles. When writing movie titles in academic papers, the punctuation of the movie titles is generally preserved and does not change. The movie title, alongside its punctuations, must be italicized in academic papers.
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For effective writing, writers need to know how to write a movie title in their academic papers, essays, or articles should they come across one. It is helpful to know what each style guide requires when writing movie titles in different kinds of writings. Over time, different style guides have required a wide range of conventions from underlining to italicizing to having the movie title placed between quotations. Although most academic style guides generally require movie titles to be italicized while adhering to case capitalization conventions, it is always important to check the style guide.
According to case capitalization conventions, all the main words must be capitalized. In addition, the first word and any long conjunctive or preposition must be capitalized as well. Underlining a movie title in an article is accepted only when a paper is written by hand. Articles written in the field of journalism follow the AP Style guide. According to the AP Style guide, movie titles should be placed between quotations while adhering to the case capitalization conventions. When quoting other writers in academic writings, if there is a movie title in the quotation, it must be italicized. It is important to know that the movie title itself should not be placed between quotations. Generally, the punctuation of a movie title stays intact in academic writings.
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Once upon a time, underlining and italics used to be equally acceptable when formatting movie titles in written works. As long as you were consistent, no one cared that much. We once used these things called typewriters (remember those?), which typically didn't include italicized letters.
With the birth of the computer, creating italics became as easy as highlighting some text and hitting a button. Now, nearly everyone puts movie titles in italics. Italicized text, in case you're wondering, is a slightly slanted version of the words, as in this sentence.
Almost no one uses underlining anymore for anything, including articles, books, essays, poems, short stories, songs, or movies. Handwritten information is the exception. In this case, underlining a movie title is acceptable.
This doesn't mean you that can't use underlining, however most modern citation, literature, and style guides agree that the use of italics is the correct way to go when deciding how to format movie titles. The general rule for long works, like movies, or even collections of short movies, like Pixar's Short Films, is to put the title in italics. Movies, as well as a television series as a whole, like Friends, are considered long works, and are therefore italicized.
If a movie is in a series, like Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, it's considered a long work, so put the title in italics. However, only The Godfather would be in italics in The Godfather trilogy, as trilogy is not an official part of the movie title.
Let's look at a few sample sentences:
Different style guides have different rules for formatting movie titles. What's important is to be consistent and to follow the rules of the style guide you are using. Whether for an academic, professional, or informational document, always stick with the same formatting. If, for some reason you decide to go with underlining, stick with it, and don't switch to italicizing in the same work, and vice-versa.
Let's see what some major style guides recommend:
There are some exceptions to the italics rules. If you are submitting an article, some editors prefer underlining to italics. Check with the publication first.
If you want to include the title of an individual episode in a television series, the general rule is to italicize the name of the show and use quotation marks for the episode. Here's an example: Friends, “The One with Rachel's Going Away Party.”
The general rule when considering whether to underline or italicize movies and television series titles is to put them in italics because they're considered long works. Italicized text is a slightly slanted version of the words. Movies that are part of a series, such as The Godfather, are put in italics. The correct formatting for an episode in a television series is to italicize the name of the series and put the name of the episode in quotation marks.
Major style guides like the Modern Language Association (MLA), Chicago/Turabian Manual of Style, and American Psychological Association (APA) suggest italicizing movie titles. The Associated Press (AP) recommends capitalizing movie titles and putting them in quotation marks. There are some other exceptions to the italics rules. For example, some publications prefer that writers underline movie titles in articles. The most important thing when formatting movie titles is to choose a style and be consistent.
