Whether a manuscript title, section heading, or table caption is capitalized in title case (most major words capitalized) or sentence case (only the first word and proper nouns capitalized) is set by the target journal’s house style, not by personal preference or by a generic “title case converter.” The two conventions produce visibly different results, the rules for which words count as “major” vary by style guide, and a handful of edge cases – hyphenated compounds, subtitles after a colon, species names, gene symbols – trip up authors regardless of which convention a journal has chosen. This guide gives the rule set for each major style and shows the same manuscript title rendered correctly in each.
Title case vs. sentence case, side by side
Take one manuscript title and render it three ways. The differences are not cosmetic – each reflects a different rule for how prepositions are treated, which is the single biggest source of disagreement between style guides.
| Convention | Rendering |
|---|---|
| Title case (APA) | A Randomized Controlled Trial of Early Mobilization After Cardiac Surgery: A Multi-Center Study of ICU Length-of-Stay |
| Headline style (Chicago / AMA) | A Randomized Controlled Trial of Early Mobilization after Cardiac Surgery: A Multi-Center Study of ICU Length-of-Stay |
| Sentence case (Vancouver / NLM / reference-list style) | A randomized controlled trial of early mobilization after cardiac surgery: a multi-center study of ICU length-of-stay |
Why “After” differs between the first two rows: APA capitalizes any word of four or more letters regardless of part of speech, and “after” has five letters, so APA capitalizes it. Chicago-style headline capitalization (which AMA follows closely) lowercases prepositions regardless of length unless the preposition is the first or last word of the title, so “after” stays lowercase there even though it would be capitalized under APA’s length rule. This one word is usually the fastest way to tell which headline convention a document is actually following.
Rules by style guide
| Style guide | Convention | What gets capitalized | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| APA (7th ed.) | Title case for manuscript titles and headings; sentence case for reference-list titles | Nouns, verbs (including linking verbs), adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and any word of four or more letters. Articles, and conjunctions/prepositions of three letters or fewer, stay lowercase unless first/last word or first word after a colon, dash, or end punctuation. | Psychology, education, many social sciences |
| AMA (11th ed.) | Headline-style title case for manuscript titles and headings; sentence case for reference-list article titles | Follows Chicago-style headline capitalization closely: articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions lowercase regardless of length, except as first/last word. | Biomedical and clinical journals |
| Chicago Manual of Style | Headline-style title case | Lowercases articles (a, an, the), the coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, nor, or, and all prepositions regardless of length. Unlike most other styles, Chicago capitalizes the coordinating conjunctions yet and so. First and last words of title and subtitle are always capitalized. | Humanities, some social sciences; base for AMA’s headline rules |
| Vancouver / NLM (ICMJE recommendations) | Sentence case | Only the first word of the title, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns/established acronyms (e.g., ICU, DNA) are capitalized. This applies to how article titles appear in reference lists (as indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE), not necessarily to the manuscript’s own title page, which follows the target journal’s instructions for authors. | Biomedical journals citing via Vancouver numbered-reference style |
These are the citation-style rules. A journal’s own house style for the title page and headings can differ from its reference-list citation style – a Vancouver-referencing journal does not automatically require sentence-case section headings. Always check the specific journal’s instructions for authors rather than assuming citation style dictates heading style.
How the major publishers actually format titles
Citation-style manuals describe a default; individual publishers layer their own house style on top, and that house style governs what actually gets typeset. As a general pattern:
- Nature and the Nature-family journals use sentence case for article titles: only the first word, proper nouns, and terms that are inherently capitalized (gene symbols, species names, drug names with fixed capitalization) keep their capitals. This holds even though Nature does not use APA or Vancouver style for its references.
- Elsevier journals vary by title – there is no single Elsevier-wide rule. Many Elsevier journals’ Guides for Authors specify sentence case for the article title (capitalizing only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns), but this is set per journal, so confirm against the specific journal’s Guide for Authors rather than assuming.
- IEEE publications typically present the manuscript/paper title itself in title case on the published PDF, and IEEE’s reference-list format for cited works commonly keeps article and paper titles in title case as well – a departure from the sentence-case convention used in APA and Vancouver reference lists.
Because house style can override the generic rule, treat the tables above as the reasoning behind the rule, and treat the target journal’s own instructions for authors as the final word.
Hyphenated compounds
Hyphenated words are the most common place authors apply title case inconsistently.
- APA: capitalize the second part of a hyphenated compound if both parts are major words – “Self-Report,” not “Self-report.” If the second part is a minor word (a short preposition, for instance), it stays lowercase: “Length-of-Stay” capitalizes “Length” and “Stay” but leaves “of” lowercase, because “of” is a minor word within the compound, not because of the hyphen.
- Chicago / AMA headline style: generally capitalizes both elements of a hyphenated compound unless the second element is itself a minor word (an article, short conjunction, or preposition), which follows the same logic as unhyphenated title case.
- Sentence case: hyphenated compounds are treated as ordinary running text – only the first element is capitalized if the whole compound opens the title; internal hyphenated compounds stay entirely lowercase unless a part is a proper noun.
Subtitles after a colon
Every major style capitalizes the first word immediately following a colon that introduces a subtitle, regardless of what that word is or how long it is. This is true even in sentence case, which otherwise capitalizes almost nothing after the opening word: “A randomized controlled trial of early mobilization after cardiac surgery: A multi-center study…” – the “A” after the colon is capitalized under APA sentence case specifically because it opens the subtitle, not because “a” would normally be capitalized. The same rule applies after an em dash or end punctuation within a heading.
Species names and gene/protein symbols inside a title
Taxonomic and gene/protein nomenclature rules sit outside the title-case/sentence-case system entirely and are never overridden by it. A genus name is always capitalized and a species epithet is always lowercase, in title case, sentence case, or running text alike – see how to write a scientific name for the full binomial formatting rules, including italicization. Gene symbols, protein symbols, and other standardized nomenclature (e.g., HGNC gene symbols, which are conventionally italicized and follow fixed capitalization patterns that differ between genes and their protein products) likewise keep their own prescribed casing no matter which capitalization convention governs the rest of the title; the worked comparisons in scientific nomenclature examples show how species, chemical, and gene names are cased consistently across contexts. In practice: apply the style guide’s title-case or sentence-case rule to the ordinary English words in a title, then leave any species name, gene symbol, or other standardized nomenclature exactly as its own naming convention requires, without adjusting its capitalization to fit the surrounding words.
Table and figure captions
Caption capitalization is frequently treated as if it followed the same rule as the manuscript title, and it often does not:
- APA requires table and figure titles to be written in italicized title case, following the same major/minor word rules as a manuscript title – this is a title-case context even in an otherwise sentence-case-heavy discipline’s manuscript, because APA’s rule for table/figure titles is set independently of its rule for reference-list entries.
- AMA and most Vancouver-referencing biomedical journals typically use sentence case for table and figure captions – only the first word and proper nouns capitalized – consistent with their sentence-case treatment of reference-list article titles.
- Column headers within a table are commonly capitalized in title case even in an otherwise sentence-case document, since column headers function more like short labels than like sentences; this is a house-style convention rather than a rule fixed by any single style manual, so check the target journal’s table-formatting guidance directly.
Because captions are exactly the kind of short, standalone text where a house-style choice is easy to get inconsistent across a manuscript with a dozen tables, decide the caption convention once, before drafting, rather than fixing it during final formatting.
Frequently asked questions
Does the citation style a journal uses (APA, Vancouver) also dictate the manuscript title’s capitalization?
Not automatically. Reference-list citation style and title-page/heading style are set independently by most journals. A Vancouver-referencing journal’s instructions for authors may still specify title case for the manuscript’s own title, even though Vancouver-style reference-list entries use sentence case. Always confirm against the specific journal’s instructions for authors rather than inferring one from the other.
Do I capitalize “is,” “are,” and other short verbs in title case?
Yes, in every major style. Verbs, including short linking verbs such as “is,” “are,” and “be,” count as major words and are capitalized in title case – length and part of speech both matter under APA’s rule, and headline style capitalizes all verbs regardless of length.
What about acronyms and initialisms inside a title?
Acronyms and initialisms keep their own established capitalization (ICU, DNA, RCT) under every convention, including sentence case, because they are treated the same way proper nouns are – the title-case/sentence-case rule governs ordinary words, not fixed-form abbreviations. See research abbreviations style guide rules for when an abbreviation needs to be defined at first use regardless of how it is capitalized.
Is there a single correct way to capitalize “et al.” in a title or heading?
“Et al.” is not typically part of a manuscript title, but it follows its own formatting rules (lowercase, italicized or not depending on style, with a period after “al” only) wherever it appears in citations; see et al. citation usage rules for the full breakdown across APA, MLA, Chicago, and Vancouver/AMA.
Should numbers and units in a title follow the same capitalization rule as words?
Numerals themselves are not capitalized, but a unit or measurement term written out as a word is capitalized under the same major/minor word rule as any other word in the title. Formatting of units and numbers in running text is a related but separate convention – see SI units in scientific writing for the full rules on unit abbreviations, spacing, and when to spell a unit out.
A practical checklist before submission
- Confirm which capitalization convention the target journal’s instructions for authors specify for the manuscript title itself – do not assume it matches the reference-list citation style.
- Apply the major/minor word rule consistently to every heading level, not just the title.
- Check every hyphenated compound individually against the style guide’s rule rather than capitalizing both halves by default.
- Capitalize the first word after any colon, em dash, or heading-ending punctuation, regardless of style.
- Leave species names, gene/protein symbols, and other standardized nomenclature in their own required casing, untouched by the title-case or sentence-case rule.
- Decide the table/figure caption convention once and apply it uniformly across every table and figure in the manuscript.
