Navigating the formatting rules about titles of compositions — books
and chapters, movies and TV shows, albums and songs, and the like — can
seem like negotiating a minefield. Here’s a handy map to help you
maneuver through the terrain:
In print, two primary formats exist for identifying a creative work.
Titles of entire bodies of work such as a book, a TV series, or an album
are often italicized, while titles for components of each — book
chapters, TV episodes, or songs — are usually enclosed in quotation
marks.
Easy enough, but what about creations such as paintings and poems? A
painting is a discrete work, but it is also often displayed as part of
an exhibition. What do you do? In this case, italicize the painting’s
title but style the title of the exhibition in roman, or ordinary, type.
(However, single ancient works of art, such as the Venus de Milo, are
simply styled in roman.) As for short poems collected in an anthology,
style their titles like those of book chapters, but italicize the titles
of book-length poems.
Photographs are considered elements of a larger work, such as a book
or an exhibition, and their titles are simply enclosed in quotation
marks.
And what about capitalization? Generally, in a title, always
capitalize the first and last words regardless of part of speech, plus
nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and long conjunctions
(those other than and, but, for, nor, and or.) Lowercase prepositions
(over, under, through, etc.) unless they are key to the title (A Walk
Through Time) or as part of an adverbial or adjectival phrase (Turn Up
the Volume).
The initial definite or indefinite article in a title can be
preempted by a nonitalicized article if it conflicts with the sentence
structure. For example, write “The Wizard of Oz audio book is a
best-seller.” But if this style looks awkward, just relax the sentence:
“The audio-book version of The Wizard of Oz is a best-seller.”
sumber
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