英语语法：214 Title Capitalization Rules

Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is capitalizing titles.

In an email, Michelle from Manila asked, "Should I capitalize all the first letters of the words in a title or just the first letter of the first word?"

This is one of those style questions. For the Grammar Girl website, I capitalize every letter of the title; but there are many different ways of capitalizing the words in a title, and which one you use is simply a matter of style. So both of the ways you asked about could be correct; it just depends on what your employer¹ or teacher prefers. It's another reason to ask for the style guide!

In addition to capitalizing the first word, and capitalizing all the words, other methods include capitalizing only the nouns² (e.g., Grammar Girl loves Tea) and capitalizing every single letter, which on a computer looks like screaming to most people but is still sometimes done for book titles (e.g., GRAMMAR GIRL WOULD KILL FOR SOME ICED TEA). There are even more options³, so I'll put some links in the transcript⁴ to a few good websites that cover all the possibilities. It's kind of a visual⁵ thing anyway, so it's good to look at the examples.

Thanks for listening
 

1 employer   

n.雇用方，雇主

参考例句：

• My employer deducted ten pounds from my wages this week.我的雇主从我本周的工钱中扣除了十英镑。
• His monthly salary is paid into the bank by his employer.他的月薪由雇主替他存入银行。

2 nouns   

n.名词；名词( noun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns. 法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Nouns join to form compounds. 名词和名词结合构成复合词。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 options   

n.选择(option的名词复数 )；选项；选择权，选择能力；[经济]买卖的特权

参考例句：

• She considered her options. 她仔细考虑了自己的各种选择。
• We are considering the options available to us in this no-win situation. 在这种取胜无望的情形下，我们在考虑有什么选择。

4 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

5 visual   

adj.视力的，视觉的，观看的，直观的，看得见的，光学的

参考例句：

• The film is a visual art.电影是一种视觉艺术。
• His designs have a strong visual appeal.他的设计在视觉上很有感染力。