Title case vs. sentence case, and when to use each
Sentence case capitalizes like a sentence; title case capitalizes the main words. Style guides disagree on the details. Here is how each case works and where it fits.
Every heading, button, and email subject line forces a small decision: which words get a capital letter? Most writers pick by habit. A deliberate choice, applied consistently, makes a document look edited.
Sentence case
Sentence case capitalizes a heading the way you would capitalize a sentence: the first word, plus proper nouns and acronyms. Everything else is lowercase.
- How to choose a laptop for college
- What the new NASA budget means for Ohio
Sentence case is easy to apply because the rule is the one you already use for sentences. It reads a little more casually, and many people find it easier to scan. Many tech companies, government sites, and newer publications use it for headings and interface text. Op-Ed Insight uses it for every heading on this site.
Title case
Title case capitalizes the main words and lowercases the small ones. The broad rule most styles share:
- Capitalize the first and last words, and all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Lowercase articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for), and some prepositions, unless they are the first or last word.
The disagreement is over which prepositions count as small.
AP and Chicago
The two most common American style guides handle prepositions differently.
AP style (Associated Press, used by many newspapers) capitalizes any word of four or more letters, including prepositions and conjunctions. “With”, “from”, “about”, and “into” are capitalized. Short words like “of”, “in”, and “on” are lowercased unless they are first or last.
Chicago style (The Chicago Manual of Style, used widely in book publishing) long lowercased prepositions regardless of length. The 18th edition (2024) changed that: prepositions of five or more letters, such as “about”, “between”, and “according”, are now capitalized. Four-letter and shorter prepositions, such as “with”, “from”, and “into”, stay lowercase in the middle of a title. Older Chicago-styled documents follow the earlier rule, so you will see both.
The same headline in each:
| Style | Result |
|---|---|
| AP | A Week With the Bees: Notes From the Hive |
| Chicago | A Week with the Bees: Notes from the Hive |
Both are correct in their own style. What looks wrong is mixing them in one document.
Watch out: Some words look like prepositions but are doing another job. In “Turn Off the Lights”, “off” is part of the phrasal verb “turn off”, and most style guides capitalize it. Title case needs judgment that no simple tool can supply perfectly.
When title case fits
Title case signals formality and tradition. It is the norm for book titles, film titles, and the names of articles in many citation styles. Many newspapers and magazines use it for headlines. If your organization’s style guide says title case, use it.
UPPERCASE and lowercase
ALL CAPS is hard to read in more than a few words, because every word becomes the same rectangular shape and readers lose the outlines they recognize. It also reads as shouting in messages. Keep it for short labels, acronyms, and legal text that is required to stand out.
All lowercase is a stylistic choice in logos and some casual brands. In running text and headings it looks like an error.
Programmer cases
Code can’t use spaces in names, so programmers join words in other ways. Each convention has a home.
| Name | Example | Common use |
|---|---|---|
| camelCase | totalWordCount |
Variables and functions in JavaScript and Java |
| PascalCase | WordCounter |
Class and type names in many languages |
| snake_case | total_word_count |
Variables and functions in Python |
| kebab-case | total-word-count |
URLs, file names, and CSS class names |
| CONSTANT_CASE | MAX_WORD_COUNT |
Constants in many languages |
The convention that matters is the one your project already uses. Consistency within a codebase beats any general rule.
Which to use
- Headings in documents, websites, and apps: sentence case is the safer default. It is simpler to apply consistently and easy to read.
- Titles of books, films, and published works: title case, following the style guide you are writing for.
- Email subject lines: either works; sentence case feels more personal.
- Buttons and menu items: sentence case is common in modern interfaces.
- Code: follow the language and the project.
Whatever you choose, apply it everywhere. A document whose headings switch between styles looks unfinished.
Before: Getting Started With Your Account. How to reset your password. Billing And Payments.
After: Getting started with your account. How to reset your password. Billing and payments.
The case converter switches text between sentence case, title case, upper, lower, and the programmer cases. For title case, check its output against your style guide, especially around prepositions and phrasal verbs.