Do You Have To Underline Book Titles

What about the titles of short stories poems and similar works.

Do you have to underline book titles. Underlining clearly shows that special attention should be given to the underlined information in this case the book title. Have you recently read to kill a mockingbird. Currently the correct mla format is to put a book title in italics if you are writing your paper on a word processor i e computer.

And it comes up for good reason. When you re writing something by hand underline the titles that would normally be italicized. However the major difference between writing a book title of an essay in apa and mla chicago is that in apa you use quotation marks while as in mla and chicago the title is italicized.

Mla apa and chicago guides agree that the use of italics is appropriate for standard book titles. You can look at several different books newspapers or magazine articles and see it handled several different ways. Since handwriting italics is difficult underlining the titles of larger works is still an acceptable notation in handwritten documents.

Notice the same title formatting rules still apply. Only the associated press prefers quotation marks for the title of a book and that s because they do not ever advocate the use of italics. If your computer word processor or typewriter will not insert italicized text into the document then it would be considered acceptable to still underline the book title.

So which one is right. How to emphasize titles of shorter pieces of work. Underlining is only when you are handwriting a paper ex.

This is the same rule for titles of episodes of shows. Sat writing test or if you are typing it on an old fashioned typewriter. For a handwritten essay the book s name should be capitalized and underlined.