Individual short story and poetry titles are surrounded by quotation marks. Italicize the titles of short story and poetry anthologies. For example, Andre Dubus's short tale "The Intruder" appears in his book Dancing After Hours.
Do not italicize the titles of novels.
This becomes more difficult when authors name their collection after a tale inside that collection. For example, one might italicize "Huckleberry Finn" but not "Tom Sawyer."
Short story and poetry titles should be centered with a full stop at the end of the title. Short stories are usually between 6 and 20 pages long while poems can be as short as a single line or as long as an entire poem cycle. Titles should be simple and appealing to readers. If a reader cannot tell what kind of piece of literature they are about to read, then it is not doing its job.
In academic papers, the title page shows the author's name and affiliation. It is also where the abstract or summary of the paper appears. Most journals have instructions for authors regarding how to format the title page. These typically include the type of paper (for example, research or article), the length of the title, whether or not to use keywords in the title, etc. Academic publishers need clear and accurate information on these elements because they use this data to decide which journals to print and who to send copies of articles to.
Journals play an important role in the publication process.
Short work titles, such as poems, essays, short tales, or chapters, should be surrounded by quotation marks. If the name of the book series is italicized, titles of books that are part of a larger body of work may be put in quotation marks. For example, the title of Charles Dickens's 1843 novel "A Christmas Carol" would not need to be in quotes because it is not considered a short story.
Short story titles can be difficult to write because they tend to be brief and therefore leave less room for interpretation. Some authors include details from the story within the title designations, such as by including an authorial pseudonym or using all caps. However, including such information within the body of the story itself is better left as a form of exposition. An example of this type of title is "John Doe writes moo." Another option is to use a semi-colon instead of a full stop; for example, "This Is Not A Story But A Series Of Events Leading Up To A Conclusion; They Are Called Days - John Chapman."
Titles can also include references to characters or events within the story, such as "Frankie Goes To Hollywood;" "The Boy Who Loved Elephants;" or "When I Was Young". Although these types of titles give away important plot points, they allow for multiple interpretations by different readers.
Long and brief play titles are typically italicized. The titles of poetry and short works of fiction are usually surrounded by quotation marks. Long poems, short films, and the longer stories known as "novellas" fall into a murky area; some people italicize the titles, while others use quotation marks. The style varies from writer to writer or publisher to publisher.
The title of a play is always in boldface type. For movies, videos, and other forms of visual media, the rule is much the same: bold for titles. Titles can be emphasized by using larger type or different typefaces; they may also be underlined or colored to draw attention to them.
Short story titles are usually not italicized. Novel titles are sometimes italicized (especially if they are based on famous paintings or sculptures), but this is not common practice. It is more common to surround the title with quotation marks ("A Room With A View").
Film and TV show titles are often written in the screenplay format, which includes parts for each scene of the program. These parts are called "shots." Each shot has a direction (usually left-right) and a call number that indicates which part of the script it comes from.
So, yes, short film titles are usually italicized.
For titles, use quotation marks.
In general, we italicize titles that can stand on their own. As a result, we distinguish between the names of novels and journals, for example, and the titles of poems, short stories, articles, and episodes (for television shows). These shorter compositions' titles would be encircled by double quotation marks. Titles printed in small caps or in running text are not italicized.
The name of a journal is usually printed in large, bold type. However, this rule is not always followed. Some journals use smaller type than usual for their titles, while others use larger type than usual. Also, some journals do not print their title at all but instead include it in the masthead (see below).
Many books have titles that are also magazines. In such cases, the title of the book is printed in large, bold type while the title of the magazine is printed in normal-size type. For example, there is a magazine called "The New Yorker". But there is also a book called "The New Yorker Book of Short Stories".
Magazines are not counted as publications on their own. Instead, they are part of a series. So, the name of a magazine is usually found along with other issues in a folder called a "slipcase".
Books that change every time they are read can be referred to as "flexible" or "dynamic" books.
Titles of whole works, such as books or newspapers, should be italicized. Both practices are optional in modern style guides.
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