Quotes Vs Italics

• It is also common to use quote marks for unpublished writing regardless of length. For example, if you were referring to an unfinished manuscript or a PhD dissertation, you would put the title in quote marks; but if these same documents were published, you would use italics.
• Here is a basic primer on the quote marks vs. Italics rules: First and foremost, never ever use quote marks or italics when a title is ACTING as a title. In other words, on your own title page or at the top of your manuscript, DON'T italicize or put quote marks on your own.

1. Quotes Vs Italics For Titles
2. Are Article Titles In Quotes Or Italics
3. Are Chart Names In Quotes Or Italics
4. Quotes Or Italics For Movie Titles

One site will clearly state that you should use quotation marks, and the next will adamantly state that you should never use quotation marks. One will recommend italics, and another will recommend against italics. It’s enough to make you have some internal dialogue of your own. I will make a few points, but the best advice is to take it all. As this post states, “You may also use italics without quotation marks for direct internal dialogue.” Either quotes or italics can be used. We would not say that one is more acceptable than the other. As an author it is up to you to decide which one to use. If you feel that italics makes your sentence less “confusing,” you can use italics. But if you want to know about formatting titles of other works in your writing (e.g., books or journal articles), you’re in the right place! Read on to find out when to use italics and quote marks for titles in your work. Formatting Titles. First, let’s give an example of what we mean. Take the following sentence.

As a writer, you know that titles are distinguished from surrounding text with italics and quotation marks. What you may not know, however, is when to use which one.

Let’s clear up the mystery.

Italics

Titles of large, stand-alone works such as books, plays, newspapers, magazines, movies, and epic poems are italicized.

• Have you watched the movie Shutter Island?
• Homeless Bird won a National Book Award in 2000.
• Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is a classic tragedy.
• “It must be true,” she said. “I read it in the New York Times.”
• I read Dante’s three-part poem The Divine Comedy in my medieval literature class.

Books or movies that are part of a series are also italicized; the series title appears in roman type, however.

• My favorite book series is A Song of Ice and Fire. I’ve read A Game of Thrones many times but have yet to enjoy A Storm of Swords.
• My favorite movie in the Lord of the Rings series is Return of the King.

Quotation marks

Shorter works such as poems, articles, short stories, songs, and chapter titles are enclosed in quotation marks. Notice that when the title falls at the end of the sentence, the period is placed inside the closing quotation mark.

• We were required to read Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
• My favorite episode of Friends is “The One with Phoebe’s Rats.”
• “Look What You Made Me Do” is the most popular song from Taylor Swift’s Reputation album.
• My favorite chapter in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is “The Vanishing Glass.

Quotes Vs Italics For Titles

When a title that should be enclosed in quotation marks appear in dialogue, use single quotation marks for the title. If the title appears at the end of the quotation, place the closing double quotation marks immediately after the single.

• “Once I read Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ I understood why it’s considered his greatest poem,” she said.
• “It’s very clear,” the teacher said, “that you haven’t read Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet ‘Common Sense.'”

Titles with punctuation

If a title contains punctuation, include it in the italics or quotation marks.

• I think Airplane! is the funniest movie ever.
• “Art Thou the Thing I Wanted?” is a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Other titles

Websites with no print counterpart are capitalized in title case and set in roman type.

• I always find great recipes on Epicurious.
• Google revolutionized research and learning.

Websites with print counterparts are italicized.

• I found the answer in Britannica Online.
• I read the obituary in the New York Times online edition.

The names of ships and other vehicles, paintings, and record albums are italicized.

• She sailed on the doomed RMS Titanic.
• The Enterprise and Discovery are two of NASA’s space shuttles.
• The best-selling album of all time is Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), by the Eagles.
• The Mona Lisa is da Vinci’s most famous painting.

The rules and examples shown here cover the basics of title formatting. Consult a style guide for more details. TCK recommends the Chicago Manual of Style.

Please share your thoughts or ask a question in the comment section below.

Want more writing tips? Check out these articles:

Tom Corson-Knowles is the founder of TCK Publishing, and the bestselling author of 27 books including Secrets of the Six-Figure author. He is also the host of the Publishing Profits Podcast show where we interview successful authors and publishing industry experts to share their tips for creating a successful writing career.

Fiction writers often ask me how to format their characters’ thoughts, which are also sometimes called internal dialogue. Should writers use quotation marks? Italics? Something else? Or nothing?

How to format a character's thoughts is up to you—there are no hard-and-fast rules—but in general, I recommend against using quotation marks.

The hardest part about deciding how to format this internal dialogue is that there is no definitive answer. It’s a style choice, and you will find different credible websites that make different recommendations, sometimes in very strong tones.

One site will clearly state that you should use quotation marks, and the next will adamantly state that you should never use quotation marks. One will recommend italics, and another will recommend against italics. It’s enough to make you have some internal dialogue of your own. I will make a few points, but the best advice is to take it all with a grain of salt, and if you have an editor or agent, see what they prefer.

Italics for Internal Dialogue

When I look through the published books that I’ve read recently, I regularly see italics being used for a character’s thoughts, so it’s certainly done, and it’s certainly a common style.

Quotation Marks for Internal Dialogue

After reading a bunch of sources and their recommendations, I come down on the side that says you shouldn’t use quotation marks for a character’s thoughts. Quotation marks denote speech, and using them for internal dialogue could confuse your readers.

Internal Dialogue Without Formatting

Finally, in many cases, you don’t need any special formatting. For example, when you’re writing in third person, the narrator can tell the reader what characters are thinking. Here is an example of something like that:

Squiggly reminded himself that he had wanted to go on this nightmare of a fishing trip.

Aardvark could have told me we’d have to climb boulders, Squiggly thought, wondering whether Aardvark had withheld that information on purpose.

The same style can work in first person too:

Are Article Titles In Quotes Or Italics

Hurry up, I thought, shifting my bag and wishing the train would come.

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Some writers would italicize “Hurry up” in that sentence, and although it would be fine, it’s also not necessary. Many of the books on my e-reader would have that italicized, but it’s simply your choice (or your editor’s choice).

One pet peeve from the redundancy department, though, is to not write such things as “she thought to herself.” You don’t need the “to herself” part since the default state is that you’re the only one who can hear your thoughts. If you're writing about telepathy in science fiction, you may have more leeway, but most writers should never have characters thinking “to themselves.”

I’ll also note that I did check the Chicago Manual of Style to see if it had an entry on this topic since it is the style guide used by many book editors. I couldn’t find an entry, but in the website’s “Shop Talk” section, Carol Saller, an editor for Chicago and the author of the book “The Subversive Copyeditor,” noted that she “is constantly removing italics used for . . . internal dialogue.” So, as tempting as it is to use italics, and as common as it is, remember that not everybody loves them.

The best advice is to choose your style (with input from your editor if you have one), and use that style consistently.

Additional Source

Are Chart Names In Quotes Or Italics

Hill, B. “Inner Dialogue—Writing Character Thoughts.” The Editor’s Blog. May 17, 2012. http://theeditorsblog.net/2012/02/28/inner-dialogue-writing-character-thoughts/ (accessed October 12, 2020).

Quotes Or Italics For Movie Titles

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