Use Of Punctuation In A Post And What Is Annoying or Confusing

[Rachel Lim]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

What class teaches this in school?

I don't remember if I learned this in class or if it was something I just researched because I was bored, but I did learn the various ways to capitalize titles at some point. Just digging up what I found is one of the most confusing school-related things I've had to do in a long time (and it reminded me why I prefer math...why does English need to make everything so confusing?)

1. Sentence case:
- Capitalize the first word of the title
- Capitalize all proper nouns

1.1. APA style:
(In addition to sentence case)
- Capitalize all words of 4+ letters
- Capitalize all verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns
- Capitalize both words in hyphenated compounds
- Capitalize words after colons or dashes
- Capitalize all major words, which do not include conjunctions (words that join clauses), articles (a, an, the), or short prepositions (explains the connection of a noun/pronoun to the rest of the sentence, e.g. like, toward, from, before)

1.2. Title case:
(In addition to sentence case)
- Capitalize the last word of the title
- Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (join a dependent clause to a main clause, e.g. if, because, as)

1.2.1. Associated Press Stylebook:
(In addition to title case)
- Capitalized if they have 4+ letters: all principal words (including prepositions and conjunctions)

1.2.2. Other:
(In addition to title case)
- I've read somewhere that says to only capitalize prepositions if they have 5+ letters

1.2.3. MLA:
(In addition to title case)
- Lowercase unless they are the first/last words: articles, coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor), and prepositions unless used as adjectives, and the word "to" if used before a verb

1.2.3.1. Chicago Manual of Style:
(In addition to MLA)
- Lowercase the second part of species names even if they are the last word in the sentence

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

How obsolete is the use of capitalization in a title?

Not obsolete. But the rules don't make it easy to capitalize "correctly."