The Grammar Doctor

titles

When do you put titles in quotation marks, and when do you underline them?

First of all, you should probably forget about underlining. Underlining was started in the bad old days of typewriters where the only way you could show italics was by underlining. With computers we can still underline, but we can also use italic script just as easily. It's still acceptable to underline, but it's probably better just to italicize.

The question should be, when you do put the title in quotation marks, and when do you italicize?

Works that are published as part of something else are put in quotation marks. That would include things like articles in a newspaper or magazine or encyclopedia, short stories or poems in a collection.

Works that are published separately as whole works are italicized (but you can underline them). Names of books, magazines, newspapers, TV series movies, and plays would be included in this category.


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