Title Case
A capitalization style where major words in a heading are capitalized.
Definition
Title case is a capitalization convention used for titles, headings, and headlines in which the first letter of major words is capitalized. Minor words — articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor), and short prepositions (in, on, at, to, by) — are typically kept lowercase unless they appear as the first or last word of the title. Title case style varies slightly between style guides (AP, Chicago, APA, MLA), but the core principle is the same.
Why It Matters
Title case makes headings visually distinct from body text and signals to readers that they are looking at a title or section heading. It is required by many editorial style guides for article titles, book titles, chapter headings, and news headlines. Using inconsistent capitalization in headings can undermine the professionalism of a publication. For SEO, title tags in search results follow title case conventions, and properly formatted titles tend to earn higher click-through rates.