# Title case or sentence case? APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard rules

**Should titles and headings be in title case or sentence case in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver?** Title case or sentence case depends on the style and the place. APA 7 sets titles in the reference list in sentence case, but paper titles, headings and titles named in the text in title case. MLA 9 and Chicago 18 use title case throughout. Cite Them Right Harvard and Vancouver put article and book titles in sentence case; IEEE does so for articles.

Published 2026-09-26 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/title-case-or-sentence-case

Title case or sentence case is decided by the style and by where the title sits. APA 7 puts titles in its reference list in sentence case and its headings in title case; MLA 9 and Chicago 18 use title case everywhere; Cite Them Right Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver lower most titles in the list.

EdCitation publishes this guide. Every rule was read at the style's own publisher on 27 September 2026; Harvard has no single publisher, so its rules come from university guides that follow *Cite Them Right*.

EdCitation's free [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) builds each reference from the publisher's record, and publishers often deposit titles in title case. It sets APA 7 and Vancouver titles in sentence case; the runs below show what to check.

## What is the difference between title case and sentence case?

Title case capitalises the major words of a title; sentence case lowers most words, as a sentence would (American Psychological Association, 2022b). Compare "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition" with "Deep residual learning for image recognition".

In both, proper nouns and the first word keep their capitals. The styles disagree over the small words, over words after a hyphen or a colon, and over where each case is used. MLA's posts call title case "headline style" and sentence case "sentence style"; APA and Chicago's 18th edition say title case.

## Which styles use title case, and which use sentence case?

Style by style, with the page each rule was read on:

| Style | Article and chapter titles | Book titles | Journal names | Headings | Read at |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| APA 7 | Sentence case | Sentence case | Title case | Title case, all five levels | American Psychological Association (2022a, 2022b) |
| MLA 9 | Title case | Title case | Title case | Capitalised like titles | Modern Language Association (2018a, 2018b) |
| Chicago 18 author-date | Title case | Title case | Title case | Title case | University of Chicago Press (n.d.-a, n.d.-b) |
| Harvard (Cite Them Right) | Sentence case | Sentence case | Main words capitalised | Not set by the style: follow your university | The Open University (n.d.); Robert Gordon University (2026) |
| IEEE | Sentence case in the guide's examples | Title case | Abbreviated, capitalised | Levels 2 and 3 upper and lower case; level 4 first word only | IEEE (2024, 2025) |
| Vancouver (NLM) | Sentence case | Sentence case | Abbreviated, every word capitalised | Not set: follow the journal | National Library of Medicine (2015, 2018) |
| Built by EdCitation | [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) sets sentence case in APA and Vancouver; keeps a record's capitals in Harvard and IEEE | Same | From the record | Not built | The runs below |

## How does APA 7 use title case and sentence case?

APA uses sentence case for titles inside reference entries and title case almost everywhere else. The rule holds "even if title case was used in the original work" (American Psychological Association, 2022a).

### In the reference list

Capitalise the first word of the title, the first word of a subtitle, proper nouns, and nouns followed by a numeral or letter. Lower everything else. APA's own example keeps the capital after the colon: *Suicide prevention: An ethically and scientifically informed approach*. Journal names stay in title case and italics: APA lists periodical titles among the uses of title case.

### In headings, the paper title and your text

Title case applies to the title of your paper, all five heading levels, table and figure titles, test names, and any title you mention in a sentence (American Psychological Association, 2022b). APA counts nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and every word of four letters or more as major, so "With", "From" and "Between" are raised, while "and", "in", "of" and "the" stay low inside a title. The second part of a hyphenated major word is raised too: "Self-Report", not "Self-report".

So one article is written two ways in one APA paper: "A Novel Coronavirus From Patients With Pneumonia in China, 2019" when named in your text, and "A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019" in the list. Our guide to [common APA 7 formatting mistakes](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/common-apa-7-formatting-mistakes) sets out the five heading levels.

## How do MLA 9 and Chicago 18 capitalise titles?

Both use title case for English titles, but they part company over long prepositions.

### MLA 9

MLA capitalises the first word, the last word and the principal words, including those after hyphens in compound terms, and lowers articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions and the "to" of an infinitive in mid-title (Piedmont Virginia Community College, 2026). In posts written for the eighth edition, a preposition stays lower case however long it is, so MLA would style John Irving's novel *The World according to Garp* (Modern Language Association, 2019b). An article that opens a subtitle is capitalised, as in *The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family* (Modern Language Association, 2019c). Headings are capitalised like titles of works (Modern Language Association, 2018a).

### Chicago 18 author-date

Chicago's author-date samples put every article and book title in title case (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a). EdCitation builds Chicago in the 18th edition's author-date system only.

The 18th edition changed two rules. Prepositions of more than four letters are now capitalised (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-d), which is why Chicago's own sample reads "the Conversation About AI" while MLA would write "about". And the second element of a hyphenated compound formed with a prefix is now raised: "Anti-Intellectuals", where the 17th edition wanted "Anti-intellectuals" (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-c). Section headings follow title case, and the word after a colon in a heading is capitalised (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-b).

## How do Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver capitalise titles?

All three lower most titles, each in its own way.

### Cite Them Right Harvard

The Open University's *Cite Them Right* guide sets book and article titles in sentence case and gives journal names capitals on every word except linking words; its examples lower the word after a colon, as in *The Victorians: a very short introduction* (The Open University, n.d.). Robert Gordon University (2026) does the same: *Dimond's legal aspects of nursing: a definitive guide to law for nurses*. Birmingham City University (n.d.), whose guide uses its own Harvard, instead capitalises the main words of titles and lowers everything after the colon's first word. Follow your library's version; [where Harvard referencing came from](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/where-harvard-referencing-came-from) explains why there is no single Harvard.

### IEEE

IEEE's style manual puts IEEE's own article titles in title case, raising prepositions of more than three letters (IEEE, 2024). Its reference guide states no rule for titles in a reference, but its examples set article and paper titles in sentence case with acronyms kept ("Energy-efficient GPU design with reconfigurable in-package graphics memory") and book titles in title case, with a few exceptions (IEEE, 2025).

### Vancouver

The National Library of Medicine (2018) says to capitalise only the first word of an article title, proper nouns, proper adjectives, acronyms and initialisms; its book chapter says the same for books (National Library of Medicine, 2015). Its examples lower the first word after a colon: "aging process: volume assessment".

## What about colons, proper nouns, hyphens and acronyms?

Four cases decide most corrections.

1. **After a colon.** APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE's examples capitalise the first word of a subtitle. *Cite Them Right* Harvard and Vancouver lower it.
2. **Proper nouns.** Every style keeps them: China and Wuhan in the examples below, Vygotsky in one of the Open University's. Sentence case never lowers a name.
3. **Hyphenated words.** In title case, APA, MLA and Chicago 18 raise the part after the hyphen ("Self-Determination", "Pre-Training"). In sentence case only the first word of the title is raised ("Pre-training" when it follows a colon in APA, "pre-training" in Harvard).
4. **Acronyms and initialisms.** They keep their capitals in every case. The NLM names them outright, and MLA keeps "LOL" in capitals in a title even though the dictionary allows a lower-case form (Modern Language Association, 2022). APA's page does not mention them.

### Titles in another language

MLA capitalises non-English titles sentence-style, so German nouns keep their capitals (Modern Language Association, 2018b); the NLM adds an English translation in square brackets. Our guide to [citing a non-English source](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/citing-a-non-english-source) covers each style.

## Why do the styles differ?

APA's sentence case goes back to 1929, when instructions in *Psychological Bulletin* gave titles "no caps save for first word and proper nouns" and warned that too many capitals "increases the cost of printing and disturbs the reader" (McAdoo, 2021). APA kept it for the seventh edition because a lower-case title stands out between the capitalised author and source elements, and a proper noun is easier to spot. Our [history of APA style](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/the-history-of-apa-style) has the rest.

In a post from 2018, MLA calls its split, headline style for English and sentence style for other languages, "somewhat arbitrary", but in line with other guides and respectful of how each language capitalises (Modern Language Association, 2018b). Chicago's twelfth edition, in 1969, first said to lower prepositions "regardless of length"; the eighteenth raises the long ones (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-d). Chicago almost always recases a title that breaks its style, even one printed in capitals on its cover (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-e). We found no published explanation from *Cite Them Right*, the IEEE or the NLM.

## What does Cite a source do with a title's capitals?

EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) is the best free way to start an entry: it looks the work up in the publisher's record rather than writing it, so the authors, year, pages and DOI are the publisher's own, and it screens the source for retraction. It takes a DOI, a title, a PubMed ID, an ISBN or a web address, needs no account, and builds all six styles. In APA 7 and Vancouver it sets a title deposited in title case in sentence case, keeping the capitals of names, places, initialisms and institutions; APA keeps the first word after a colon capitalised and Vancouver lowers it. Harvard and IEEE keep the record's capitals, so a title deposited in title case needs sentence case applied by hand there.

### Five records deposited in title case

We ran five DOIs through Cite a source on 27 September 2026. The full APA entry for the ResNet paper came back as:

> He, K., Zhang, X., Ren, S., & Sun, J. (2016). Deep residual learning for image recognition. In 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) (pp. 770–778). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90

The deposited title was "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition"; the entry is right as it stands. The other four titles, exactly as returned in APA, with what is still worth fixing:

| DOI | Title as returned (APA) | Still to fix by hand |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 10.18653/v1/N19-1423 | BERT: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding | Nothing |
| 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017 | A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019 | Nothing |
| 10.1001/jama.2020.1585 | Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel Coronavirus–Infected pneumonia in Wuhan, China | Lower "Coronavirus–Infected" to "coronavirus–infected" |
| 10.3390/clockssleep7040057 | Does daytime sleepiness moderate the relationship between working memory and academic performance in Schoolchildren? A pilot study | Lower "Schoolchildren" to "schoolchildren" |

Vancouver gave the same titles, with the word after a colon lowered, as in "BERT: pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding". Glance at any name made of ordinary words, which can be lowered with the rest. The Harvard entries kept the record's capitals, as in 'BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding'; *Cite Them Right* wants 'BERT: pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding'. A record already in sentence case comes out right: for 10.7717/peerj.21154, APA raised the word after the colon ("marks: Exploring") and Harvard kept it low.

### What to check in MLA and Chicago

For MLA and Chicago, Cite a source raises a sentence-case record to title case ("Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology" for Braun and Clarke), but does not lower a preposition the record capitalised. The JAMA title came back with "Patients With" in both styles, where MLA and Chicago 18 want "with"; the sleepiness title kept "Relationship Between" in MLA, which wants "between". In the other direction, Chicago gave "the Relationship between Sleep Quality" for the PeerJ paper, where the 18th edition raises "Between". Read the small words before you paste; the MLA's own advice is to correct any citation tool's capitals by hand (Modern Language Association, 2019a).

### Verify references matches a title in any case

Case does not stop a check. We pasted three entries, without DOIs, into EdCitation's free [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references): ResNet in APA sentence case, Braun and Clarke in MLA title case, BERT in Harvard's lower case after the colon. All three came back "verified", each with the reason "Title, year and first author match a published record." A reference that cannot be checked is reported as that, never as not found.

## How do I fix the case of a reference list, step by step?

1. Find your course's style, and which Harvard. EdCitation's free [Check your paper](https://edcitation.com/check) reads it from your assignment's instructions.
2. Build each entry in [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) from its DOI or title.
3. In Harvard and IEEE, lower every word of the title except the first, proper nouns and acronyms; in IEEE, raise the first word after a colon. In APA and Vancouver, Cite a source does this: glance at hyphenated words and names.
4. In MLA and Chicago, lower articles, coordinating conjunctions and prepositions (all prepositions in MLA; those of four letters or fewer in Chicago 18).
5. Leave journal names in their capitals.
6. Recase headings to the style: title case in APA, MLA and Chicago.
7. Run the list through [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references). With Pro, $8 a month ([pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing)), [Mechanics QA](https://edcitation.com/tools/mechanics-qa) checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper, headings and reference list included.

EdCitation never writes any part of a paper, and no tool can promise a mark.

## Quick questions

### Are APA reference titles in title case or sentence case?

Sentence case, even when the work itself uses title case. Journal names keep title case.

### How do I capitalise headings in APA?

Title case, at all five levels: capitalise major words and every word of four letters or more.

### Does MLA use title case in the works-cited list?

Yes, for English titles, with every preposition lower case in mid-title. Non-English titles take sentence style.

### Does Cite a source put my APA title in sentence case?

Yes. EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) sets it in sentence case, as APA 7 asks, keeping names and initialisms. Glance at names made of ordinary words and hyphenated words.

### Does Harvard capitalise the word after a colon?

In *Cite Them Right* Harvard, as the Open University and Robert Gordon University show it, no. Some universities' own Harvard styles differ, so check your library's guide.

## References

- American Psychological Association. (2022a, July). *Sentence case capitalization*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case)
- American Psychological Association. (2022b, July). *Title case capitalization*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case)
- Birmingham City University. (n.d.). *Harvard style guide*. Library and Learning Resources. [https://www.bcu.ac.uk/library/services-and-support/referencing/harvard/harvard-style-guide](https://www.bcu.ac.uk/library/services-and-support/referencing/harvard/harvard-style-guide)
- IEEE. (2024). *IEEE editorial style manual for authors*. IEEE Author Center. [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE-Editorial-Style-Manual-for-Authors.pdf](https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE-Editorial-Style-Manual-for-Authors.pdf)
- IEEE. (2025). *IEEE reference style guide for authors* (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Author Center. [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf](https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf)
- McAdoo, T. (2021, July 7). *Why titles have sentence case capitalization in APA Style references*. APA Style Blog. [https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/sentence-case-titles-references](https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/sentence-case-titles-references)
- Modern Language Association. (2018a, December 13). *How do I style headings and subheadings in a research paper?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/styling-headings-and-subheadings/](https://style.mla.org/styling-headings-and-subheadings/)
- Modern Language Association. (2018b, April 29). *Why does the MLA capitalize certain words in titles?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/capitalization-of-titles/](https://style.mla.org/capitalization-of-titles/)
- Modern Language Association. (2019a, September 27). *The citation tool at our library does not follow the MLA's guidelines for capitalizing titles. What should we do?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/citation-generators-errors/](https://style.mla.org/citation-generators-errors/)
- Modern Language Association. (2019b, January 1). *In MLA style, should any part of a two-word preposition, such as according to, be capitalized in a title?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/two-word-prepositions-in-titles/](https://style.mla.org/two-word-prepositions-in-titles/)
- Modern Language Association. (2019c, February 22). *Should an article at the start of a subtitle be capitalized?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/articles-start-of-subtitles/](https://style.mla.org/articles-start-of-subtitles/)
- Modern Language Association. (2022, July 13). *How do I style abbreviations like LOL in a title?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/styling-lol-in-a-title/](https://style.mla.org/styling-lol-in-a-title/)
- National Library of Medicine. (2015). Books. In *Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers* (2nd ed.). [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7271/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7271/)
- National Library of Medicine. (2018). Journals. In *Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers* (2nd ed.). [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7282/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7282/)
- The Open University. (n.d.). *Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)*. Library Services. [https://university.open.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-plagiarism/quick-guide-to-harvard-referencing-cite-them-right](https://university.open.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-plagiarism/quick-guide-to-harvard-referencing-cite-them-right)
- Piedmont Virginia Community College. (2026, August 31). *Capitalization*. Citation Styles Playbook. [https://libguides.pvcc.edu/citationstyles/mla9-capitalization](https://libguides.pvcc.edu/citationstyles/mla9-capitalization)
- Robert Gordon University. (2026, April 15). *Whole books*. Cite Them Right Harvard templates. [https://library.rgu.ac.uk/harvard-referencing-templates/whole-books](https://library.rgu.ac.uk/harvard-referencing-templates/whole-books)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-a). *Author-date: Sample citations*. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-b). *Headlines and titles of works* [Q&A on a colon in a heading]. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0072.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0072.html)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-c). *Headlines and titles of works* [Q&A on hyphenated compounds formed with a prefix]. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0094.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0094.html)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-d). *Headlines and titles of works* [Q&A on prepositions in titles]. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0101.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0101.html)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-e). *Headlines and titles of works* [Q&A on titles that break Chicago's style]. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0093.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/CapitalizationTitles/faq0093.html)