Titles

This section provides detailed information about the use of titles in addition to AP style updates.

Consult The Associated Press Stylebook for more details plus other types of titles not listed.

 

Academic titles

Academic titles indicate levels of formal education achieved.

• Capitalize and spell out formal academic titles such as chancellor, provost, professor, etc., only when they precede a person’s name:
  • ✅ Do: Chancellor Jones
  • ✅ Do: Provost Smith
  • ✅ Do: Professor Brown
• Use lowercase elsewhere (see exceptions for specific academic titles below):
  • ✅ Do: Jones, who is chancellor of the university
  • ✅ Do: Smith, who was appointed provost
  • ✅ Do: Brown, who is a professor of history
• Do not follow a name with an abbreviation for an academic degree as if it were a courtesy title. If mention of a degree is necessary to establish someone’s credentials, use a phrase instead of an abbreviation:
  • ✅ Do: He recognized Dean Jones, who has a doctorate in psychology, or: He recognized Dean Jones, who earned a PhD in psychology.
  • ✅ Do: Michael M. Crow, president of the university, spoke Wednesday, or: Michael M. Crow, who earned his PhD in public administration, is the president of the university.
  • 🚫 Don't: Jane Smith, PhD
  • 🚫 Don't: Smith, MFA 
     

Guidelines for specific academic titles

Occupational and formal job titles

• Occupational titles generally describe someone's job or work. 
  • Occupational titles are only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or in a salutation:
    • ✅ Do: Astronaut John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth.
    • ✅ Do: Attending the event was astronaut John Glenn, among others.
    • ✅ Do: Dear Astronaut John Glenn, I loved your presentation.
• Formal titles are specific, officially designated job titles that denote a scope of authority, professional activity or academic activity.
  • Capitalize formal titles when they are used immediately before a name, but not after:
    • ✅ Do: He wrote an article about Pope Francis.
    • ✅ Do: She read many books about President George Washington.
    • ✅ Do: The director issued a statement.
    • ✅ Do: The pope gave his blessing.
    • ✅ Do: The vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, declined to run again.
  • The following formal titles are capitalized and abbreviated as shown when used before a name both inside and outside quotations:
    • ✅ Do: Dr., Gov., Lt. Gov., Rep., Sen. and certain military ranks.
  • Do not include U.S. before the titles of government officials except when needed for clarity. 
    • ✅ Do: Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
  • Past and future titles: A formal title that an individual formerly held, is about to hold or holds temporarily is capitalized if used before a person’s name. But do not capitalize the qualifying word: 
    • ✅ Do: The speaker was former President Barack Obama.
    • ✅ Do: Attorney General-designate John Smith.

Examples of occupational versus formal titles:

Common abbreviations

Apply the following guidelines to titles of books, movies, plays, poems, albums, songs, operas, radio and television programs, lectures, speeches and works of art.

Capitalization

•  Capitalize all words in a title:
  • Examples:
    • ✅ Do: “Of Mice and Men”
    • ✅ Do: “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
  • Exceptions, unless they start or end the title:
    • Articles — a, an, the
    • prepositions of three or fewer letters — for, of, on, up, etc.
    • conjunctions of three or fewer letters — and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet, etc.
• Capitalize prepositions of four or more letters (above, after, down, inside, over, with, etc.) and conjunctions of four or more letters (because, while, since, though, etc.).
  • ✅ Do: “Time After Time”
  • ✅ Do: “Gone With the Wind”
• Capitalize “to” in infinitives: 
  • ✅ Do: “What I Want To Be When I Grow Up”
     

Italics

Do not use italics for any composition titles. See Formatting, punctuation and symbols. 
 

Quotations

• Put quotation marks around the names of all works.
  • Examples:
    • ✅ Do: “Designing the New American University”
    • ✅ Do: “A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman”
  • Exceptions:
    • Magazine titles
    • Newspapers
    • The Bible and other holy books
    • Books that are primarily catalogs of reference material, such as catalogs, almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, handbooks and similar publications.
• Do not use quotation marks around software titles, apps, or around names of video, online or analog versions of games:
  • ✅ Do: Google Docs
  • ✅ Do: Windows
  • ✅ Do: macOS
  • ✅ Do: Pokemon Go
  • ✅ Do: The Legend of Zelda
  • ✅ Do: Monopoly