Titles of blog posts and web pages are very important. Having important keywords in the title is the most important ranking factor for search engine optimization. It is also important to make the title appealing and interesting at the same time, because it is usually the first thing people notice when they see your post or web page in the search results of search engines, feed readers (blogs) and news aggregators. Anybody who tries to attract the Digg.com crowds knows that the title tag can make the difference between having a winner and going unnoticed into oblivion.
Interesting about titles in the English language is also the fact that they follow different capitalization rules for the words used in the title compared to the capitalization rules of regular content.
English is my second language and we do not have different rules for this in the German language. It was always a mystery to me, which words have to be capitalized and which words do not. A simplified but wrong rule is to capitalize every single word in the title. It does look awkward in most cases, independent of the fact that it is just wrong to do it that way.
I used my gut feelings most of the times, but decided to get to the base of it and figure out if there are any specific rules that state which word needs to be capitalized and which word does not. Most people probably know about these rules, but I am sure that I am not the only one who did not learn this in school or college. The people who had it in school can consider this information a “refresher”.
In titles of songs or albums and band names, blog posts or articles, the standard rule in the English language is to capitalize words that:
- Are the first or the last word in the title
- Are not conjunctions (“and”, “but”, “or”, “nor”), adpositions (“to”, “over”), articles (“an”, “a”, “the”), or the “to” in infinitives.
Conjunctions
Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions which work together to coordinate two items. English examples include for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so, both … and, either … or, neither … nor, and not (only) … but (… also).
Subordinating conjunctions, also called subordinators, are conjunctions that introduce a dependent clause; English examples include after, although, if, unless, and because. Another way for remembering is the mnemonic “BISAWAWE”: “because“, “if“, “so that“, “after“, “when“, “although“, “while“, and “even though“.
Adposition
An adposition is an element that combines syntactically with a phrase and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context. “Adposition” is a general term that includes the more specific labels preposition, postposition, and circumposition, which indicate the position of the adposition with respect to its complement phrase. Adpositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them. Examples: of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from
Articles:
The words: the, a and an
Infinitives
The infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to. Therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives.
I found most of the information on Wikipedia and used some of its content directly or in altered form in this post. I also used a few other online resources for complimentary information.
There are always border line cases so I would not worry about it too much, but it helps with the decision if or if not a word in the title should be capitalized if your guts took time of right at the time when you are finalizing a great post for your blog or website.
Cheers!
Carsten Cumbrowski
Resources for internet marketers at Cumbrowski.com, for example keyword research tips and guides for SEO and SEM.
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Great post for us non-native speakers. I’d post a printout next to my monitor if your site had a decent print version. ;-)
Jan,
and there are quite a few of us in this country and elsewhere. The blog is not only read by people who live in the united states. :)
Btw. just print the post. The site has a print style sheet that makes the content printer friendly when you print it.
There is no need for a separate “printer friendly” page that only has the potential to create duplicate content issues, if it is not blocked for the search engines. :)
Cheers!
When I just print this page, all the navigation + ads move to the end. Printing at 75% in Firefix its still 5 pages, but indeed the first page of it is just the text.
Indeed. Mhh. I will tell Loren, who runs this blog.
Sorry, you can also copy and paste it into a word processor. I believe that the middle part is actually the most important one and would fit on a single page.
You can use Google Docs and Spreadsheets for example.
Great post. I’ve had the opposite issue publishing articles in German. From what I’ve heard the only word capitalized in most European languages is the first word. Is that true for German?
David, thanks and to your question does not exist an easy answer :).
General rules for capitalization: First word of the sentence, nouns, proper names/brands and nouns that derive from another word-types (could not find an English translation for “Substantivierung” ) also the pronouns in salutations in the 2nd person.
I hope the last part made sense. I had to translate it myself because there does not exist an equivalent for it in the English language. Here is an example to illustrate it.
“Could You please do this for me?”. The “you” is used to address a person and replaces the 1st person salutation e.g. the name of the person and capitalized in German because of that.
You can also write it in lower case, but that is only one example of the mess created by the reformation of the German language that started in 2005 and was finalized in August last year. A lot of people were opposed it and they already changed things again as a compromise.
There are 21 rules for capitalization in the German language (and 11 rules for the use of lower case letters)
Sorry for all the references in German. I don’t know of any good sources that covered this ordeal and mess over the past years to be accurate enough.
Thanks for the info on capitalization. I’ll have to go back and review everything I’ve published in German now.
> Sorry for all the references in German.
No worries. That’s what Google translate is for :)
Now if only I could get someone to post about capitalization in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese I’d be in really good shape.
“Now if only I could get someone to post about capitalization in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese I’d be in really good shape.”
Hang on, I have it somewhere.. ah, here it is. Aehm it is always lower case or upper case, depending what type of person you are.
If you think a glass is half empty, it would be lower case and if you think a glass is half full, then it would be upper case instead hehe. Cheers!
Based on your definition of English words in titles which are not capitalized, I believe I’ve compiled a complete list…maybe you’d like to verify?
Title Capitalization in English
The following words are not capitalized…
Articles:
a
an
the
Conjunctions:
and
but
or
so
after
before
when
while
since
until
although
even if
because
both…and
either…or
neither…nor
not only…but also
Prepositions:
aboard
about
above
absent
across
after
against
along
alongside
amid
amidst
among
amongst
around
as
aslant
astride
at
atop
barring
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
besides
between
beyond
but
by
despite
down
during
except
failing
following
for
from
in
inside
into
like
merry
mid
minus
near
next
notwithstanding
of
off
on
onto
opposite
outside
over
past
plus
regarding
round
save
since
than
through
throughout
till
times
to
toward
towards
under
underneath
unlike
until
up
upon
via
with
within
without
Prepositions; Two words:
according to
ahead of
as to
aside from
because of
close to
due to
far from
in to
inside of
instead of
near to
next to
on to
out of
outside of
owing to
prior to
subsequent to
Prepositions; Three words:
as far as
as well as
by means of
in accordance with
in addition to
in front of
in place of
in spite of
on account of
on behalf of
on top of
with regard to
in case of
Prepositions; Archaic or infrequently used:
anti
betwixt
circa
cum
in lieu of
per
qua
sans
unto
versus
vis-à-vis
Prepositions; Not fully grammaticalized:
concerning
considering
regarding
Prepositions; Preposition-like modifiers of quantified noun phrases:
apart from
but
except
plus
save
Prepositions; Postpositions:
ago
apart
aside
away
hence
notwithstanding
on
through
withal
Nunajer, Woah! How did you compiled that one? What did you use as sources? Is there any professor or student of linguistic and English language around to double check? :)
I compiled it by looking-up (internet) the parts of speech included on your list, example: using google, “define: adposition” = “It is called a preposition if placed before a noun, and is called a postposition if placed after a noun.” So prepositions. I also looked-up the articles and conjunctions…and compared the various lists I discovered with each other; their matching-up was pretty cut & dry. This then gave me a list by parts-of-speech…which is what I posted.
On this list, however, there are some overlapping words…words that can be used both as a preposition and as a conjunction; thus, form my self I threw-out the parts-of-speech headers and eliminated the duplicate words. This has given me an alphabetical word list–a list of words not capitalized in English titles (if they are not the first or last word in the title).
I have a master’s degree in English Language Writing myself and believe my list to be correct…however I also believe that 911 was an inside-job; thus, my list really ought to be double-checked. No, I no longer have access to a professor. In my opinion, the best way to verify my list is to have it check-over by the authors/editors of a respectable English Grammar text-book (though I haven’t looked into this)…or the people at “The Chicago Manual of Style”…or any two/three fastidious high-school or college English Grammar teachers.
Maybe post it in Wiki and wait for input via the learned within the general public.
Nunajer
Would you capitalize “which”?
It’s a great post for native speakers as well!!!
Your post is extremely useful! It completely changed the way I entitle my Mp3 songs! :)
Thanks!
Words like “underneath” should be capitalized as they are greater than four letters in length. So even if it is a preposition, it still may be capitalized.
Thanks for those tips, I am going to print these up because I am constantly running into words that I’m not sure I should capitalize.
Thanks for those tips, I am going to print these up because I am constantly running into words that I’m not sure I should capitalize.
GREAT list! I am a native English speaker, and I found this site useful for my current college paper. I was not sure if I should capitalize “sans” in my title. Now, I know that I should not do so. Thank you very much!
I think ” since” is capitalized in titles. I think.
I was also curious about what words should be capitalized in titles.
I was searching allmusic.com and found out that “But” is not written in lowercase letters even though it is in the middle of the title.
allmusic.com is a site which follows the rule of title capitalization… but “But” is capitalized…
example..
“No One Knows But You”
“No One to Blame But Yourself”
“Down But Not Yet Out”
even “Yet” is not capitailized
I’m confused… Is there another specific rule for this?
You can see that other titles like
“King of Wishful Thinking”
“Knock on Wood”
“Love It or Leave It Alone/Welcome to Jamrock”
are following the rule correctly..
is over capitalized in Sunrise Over Fallujah