Formatting Titles
In academic writing, different titles are punctuated differently. In general, if a work is short, its title goes in quotation marks. If a work is long, its title is underlined or written in italics. Italics are printed letters that lean to the right, like this.
Underline or italicize a novel, full-length play, or epic poem:
Scholars debate almost everything about Beowulf, including the question of whether it should be considered an epic at all.
Beowulf differs from the classic epics of ancient Greece, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which were composed some 1,500 years before and set the standard for the epic tradition.
Enclose a short story, poem, or essay in quotation marks:
“Chicago” is a famous poem by Carl Sandburg.
The following chart will help you identify the proper forms: