Capitilization of Titles and Headlines: A Special Baby Ruthless Grammar Insert

This morning I had a question about whether a word in a headlines should be capitalized or not. So I looked up the Capitalization of Headlines and Titles section of the Chicago Manual of Style. I'd been meaning to do this for a while, and I figured today was the day.

The rules are pretty straightforward, so I thought I'd compile a cheat sheet for you guys to use. We'll deal with the words that have to be uppercase first, then the lowercase words.


Uppercase

First and last words of the title

• This rule supersedes all the others, so even if the word would otherwise be lowercase, if it's the first or last word of the title, it's always uppercase.

Nouns

Pronouns

• I, You, She, He, It, We, You, They


• Me, Her, Him, Us


• Mine, Yours, Hers, His, Its, Ours, Theirs


• This, That, These, Those


• Who, Whom, Which, What


• Whoever, Whomever, Whichever, Whatever


• All, Another, Any, Anybody, Anyone, Anything, Each, Everybody, Everyone, Everything, Few, Many, Nobody, None, One, Several, Some, Somebody, Someone


• Myself, Yourself, Herself, Himself, Itself, Ourselves, Yourselves, Themselves

Adjectives

Verbs

Adverbs

• Hint: if it ends in an -ly, it's probably an adverb. But there are other adverbs, too:


• Well, Fast, Slow, Late


• Too, Very, Really, Almost, Little, Much, Rather


• Perhaps


• Downstairs, Upstairs, There, Outside, Above, Away, Below, Down, Here, Inside, There, Up


• Always, Never, Sometimes


• However, Therefore, Also, Anyhow, Furthermore, Moreover, Otherwise, Still


• Early, Never, Now, Often, Soon, Then, Today, Tomorrow


• Why, Where, How, When

Subordinating Conjuctions

• Though, Although


• If, Unless


• Until, While, Before, After


• How, When, Whenever, Where, Wherever


• Since, Because, As


• Than, That

Lowercase

Articles

• a


• an


• the

Coordinating Conjuctions

• for


• and


• nor


• but


• or


• yet


• so


• (A good mnemonic device to remember coordinating conjuctions is FANBOYS)

Prepositions

• about, above, across, after, against, along, alongside, among, around, as, aside, at


• before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by


• circa, concerning


• despite, down, during


• except


• failing, following, for, from


• given


• in, inside, into


• like


• near, next, notwithstanding


• of, off, on, onto, opposite, out, outside, over


• pace, past, per, plus


• regarding


• since


• than, through, throughout, to, toward, towards


• under, underneath, unlike, until, up, upon


• versus, via


• with, within, without, worth

That's it. This list seems pretty daunting, but it's really pretty easy. There are a bunch of little fiddly rules, but this should cover most of the capitalization questions you have.