Easy Way to Lowercase Titles in Mendeley
by Chelsea Lee
APA Style has special formatting rules for the titles of the sources you use in your paper, such as the titles of books, articles, book chapters, reports, and webpages. The different formats that might be applied are capitalization (see Publication Manual, section 4.15), italics (see section 4.21), and quotation marks (see section 4.07), and they are used in different combinations for different kinds of sources in different contexts.
The formatting of the titles of sources you use in your paper depends on two factors: (a) the independence of the source (stands alone vs. part of a greater whole) and (b) the location of the title (in the text of the paper vs. in the reference list entry). The table below provides formatting directions and examples:
| Independence of source | Text | Reference list | ||
| Treatment | Example | Treatment | Example | |
| Stands alone (e.g., book, e-book, report [technical, government, etc.], dissertation, thesis, film, video, television series, podcast, YouTube video, artwork, map, music album, unpublished manuscript) | Italic, title case | Gone With the Wind | Italic, sentence case | Gone with the wind |
| Part of a greater whole (e.g., journal article, book chapter, e-book chapter, newspaper article, magazine article, blog post, television episode, webisode, webpage, tweet, Facebook update, encyclopedia entry, Wikipedia entry, dictionary entry, song) | Inside double quotation marks, title case | "Longitudinal Impact of Parental and Adolescent Personality on Parenting" | Not inside any quotation marks, sentence case | Longitudinal impact of parental and adolescent personality on parenting |
More on Italics Versus Nonitalics
As you can see in the table above, the titles of works that stand alone (such as a book or a report) are italicized in both the text and the reference list. In contrast, the titles of works that are part of a greater whole (such as an article, which is part of a journal, or a book chapter, which is part of a book) are not italicized in either place, and only in the text are they put inside quotation marks. If you are having difficulty determining whether something stands alone (such as a webpage that may or may not be part of a greater website), choose not to italicize.
More on Capitalization: Title Case Versus Sentence Case
APA Style uses two kinds of capitalization to format reference titles, which are also mentioned in the table above: title case and sentence case. APA's title case refers to a capitalization style in which most words are capitalized, and sentence case refers to a capitalization style in which most words are lowercased. In both cases, proper nouns and certain other types of words are always capitalized. Here are more detailed directions for implementing title case and sentence case.
Text Examples
As shown in the table above, title case is used for the titles of references when they appear in the text of an APA Style paper. Here are some examples of titles written in title case (of an article and a book, respectively), as they might appear in a sentence in the text of a paper:
| The article "Psychological Distress, Acculturation, and Mental Health-Seeking Attitudes Among People of African Descent in the United States: A Preliminary Investigation" (Obasi & Leong, 2009) makes an important contribution to the mental health and acculturation literature. |
| Students read stories of visual agnosia inThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (Sacks, 1985). |
Reference List Entry Examples
In contrast, sentence case is used for titles of references when they appear in reference list entries. See how the book and article titles look when capitalized in sentence case in these example reference list entries:
| Obasi, E. M., & Leong, F. T. L. (2009). Psychological distress, acculturation, and mental health-seeking attitudes among people of African descent in the United States: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56, 227–238. doi:10.1037/a0014865 |
| Sacks, O. (1985).The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. New York, NY: Harper & Row. |
We hope this helps you understand how to capitalize and format reference titles in APA Style.
More Posts on Capitalization
- Do I Capitalize This Word?
- How to Capitalize Author Names in APA Style
- Title Case and Sentence Case Capitalization in APA Style
Source: https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/03/how-to-capitalize-and-format-reference-titles-in-apa-style.html
How to Capitalize and Format Reference Titles in APA Style
APA Style has special formatting rules for the titles of the sources you use in your paper, such as the titles of books, articles, book chapters, reports, and webpages. The different formats that might be applied are capitalization (see Publication Manual, section 4.15), italics (see section 4.21), and quotation marks (see section 4.07), and they are used in different combinations for different kinds of sources in different contexts.
The formatting of the titles of sources you use in your paper depends on two factors: (a) the independence of the source (stands alone vs. part of a greater whole) and (b) the location of the title (in the text of the paper vs. in the reference list entry). The table below provides formatting directions and examples:
Independence of source
Text
Reference list
Treatment
Example
Treatment
Example
Stands alone
(e.g., book, e-book, report [technical, government, etc.], dissertation, thesis, film, video, television series, podcast, YouTube video, artwork, map, music album, unpublished manuscript)
Italic, title case
Gone With the Wind
Italic, sentence case
Gone with the wind
Part of a greater whole
(e.g., journal article, book chapter, e-book chapter, newspaper article, magazine article, blog post, television episode, webisode, webpage, tweet, Facebook update, encyclopedia entry, Wikipedia entry, dictionary entry, song)
Inside double quotation marks, title case
"Longitudinal Impact of Parental and Adolescent Personality on Parenting"
Not inside any quotation marks, sentence case
Longitudinal impact of parental and adolescent personality on parenting
More on Italics Versus Nonitalics
As you can see in the table above, the titles of works that stand alone (such as a book or a report) are italicized in both the text and the reference list. In contrast, the titles of works that are part of a greater whole (such as an article, which is part of a journal, or a book chapter, which is part of a book) are not italicized in either place, and only in the text are they put inside quotation marks. If you are having difficulty determining whether something stands alone (such as a webpage that may or may not be part of a greater website), choose not to italicize.
More on Capitalization: Title Case Versus Sentence Case
APA Style uses two kinds of capitalization to format reference titles, which are also mentioned in the table above: title case and sentence case. APA's title case refers to a capitalization style in which most words are capitalized, and sentence case refers to a capitalization style in which most words are lowercased. In both cases, proper nouns and certain other types of words are always capitalized. Here are more detailed directions for implementing title case and sentence case.
Text Examples
As shown in the table above, title case is used for the titles of references when they appear in the text of an APA Style paper. Here are some examples of titles written in title case (of an article and a book, respectively), as they might appear in a sentence in the text of a paper:
Reference List Entry Examples
In contrast, sentence case is used for titles of references when they appear in reference list entries. See how the book and article titles look when capitalized in sentence case in these example reference list entries:
We hope this helps you understand how to capitalize and format reference titles in APA Style.
More Posts on Capitalization