ShmoopTube

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

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Coming up with a good title is tough.

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If The Lion King has instead been titled… [People walking out of theater]

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…The Young Lion Who Has Some Problems But Then Grows Up and Eventually Has Fewer Problems,

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it might not have been a roaring success.

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But believe it or not, thinking of a title isn't the only hard part.

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Sometimes, it can be super tough to figure out how to format the dang thing!

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Some titles get italics… [The Lion King in italics]

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…while others appear in quotation marks.

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So how do we know which titles should appear in which format?

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Should we ask a Magic 8 ball?? [Italics appears in magic 8 ball]

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Should we try to figure out a mathematical formula??

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Should we just cry under our desks??? [Girl under a desk crying]

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Nope!

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No need for any of that.

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It turns out there's a simple trick we can remember, that doesn't require us to fill

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up chalkboards with crazy looking symbols.

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Good thing, too. [Teacher stood with mathematical formula]

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We were just writing complete nonsense on that board…

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So here's the trick: If the work being discussed is big, like a book or a long play, it gets italics.

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However, if the work is shorter, like a short story, it gets quotation marks.

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So a feature-length movie like The Lion King gets the italics treatment…

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…while a short story like Ernest Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

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gets quotation marks.

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A short story might desperately want to be in italics, but those are the rules. [Ernest Hemingway book appears on table]

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Sorry little guy, no exceptions.

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To test whether a piece is big enough for its title to be italicized, we can ask ourselves

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whether or not it can be divided into smaller parts. [Coop discussing titles in italics]

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For example, a book can be divided into chapters, so its title definitely gets italicized.

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The name of a newspaper would be italicized…because while there might not be any chapters, there are articles. [Boy reading a newspaper]

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…and speaking of articles, the name of the article would go in quotation marks!

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Though we don't recommend chopping up a newspaper into pieces. Makes it a lot harder to read.

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Similarly, the title of a TV series like SpongeBob SquarePants would appear in italics… [SpongeBob on TV]

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…while a single episode of the show, like "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost," would be

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in quotation marks.

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It's true, watching many, many episodes back to back to back would make for a pretty long [List of SpongeBob episodes]

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experience, but our italics and quotation rules remain intact…

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…Even if all that marathon TV watching makes you forget everything you've ever learned. [Man watching TV]

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