How to Use This Tool
Type a title. You get all four major style guides at once, with every word they disagree about marked.
Why one answer is not enough
The guides conflict, and the clearest place is a four-letter preposition:
- AP and APA capitalise prepositions of four letters or more. So Gone With the Wind.
- Chicago and MLA lowercase prepositions regardless of length. So Gone with the Wind.
Both are correct. Which one you want depends entirely on the publication you are writing for, and no converter can know that. A tool that shows a single result has silently chosen for you.
What all four agree on
- Capitalise the first and last word, whatever they are. The Book I Was Looking For keeps the final preposition capitalised.
- Capitalise nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs — including short ones. Is, Be, It and Do are all capitalised, which surprises people who assume short means lowercase.
- Lowercase the articles a, an, the and the coordinating conjunctions and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so — unless they are first or last.
- Capitalise the word after a colon.
Where the guides are genuinely vague
Some cases have no crisp answer, and a tool claiming otherwise is bluffing:
- to in an infinitive. How to Cook — here to is part of the verb, not a preposition. All four lowercase it, but for different stated reasons, and the handling gets inconsistent in longer constructions.
- The second half of a hyphenated compound. Self-Deception or Self-deception? Chicago capitalises the second element when it is a full word; AP generally does too; APA capitalises both parts of a major hyphenated word. This tool capitalises both halves and tells you when a hyphen was involved, so you can check.
- Words you meant to keep shouting. NASA, iPhone, eBay. No algorithm can distinguish an acronym from a typo, so the checkbox above leaves existing all-caps words alone. Camel-cased brand names still need a human.
What this does not try to do
It has no dictionary and no parser, so it cannot tell a preposition from the same word used as an adverb. In Turn the Radio Up, up is part of the verb and should be capitalised; in Walk up the Hill it is a preposition. Both come out lowercase here unless the word is first or last. That case is rare in titles, and the alternative — guessing — would be wrong more often than it is right.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is it Gone With the Wind or Gone with the Wind?
Both, depending on the style guide. AP and APA capitalise prepositions of four or more letters, so they give Gone With the Wind. Chicago and MLA lowercase prepositions regardless of length, so they give Gone with the Wind. The film's own posters use the capitalised form, but that is a design decision rather than a rule.
Why is Is capitalised when the is not?
Because part of speech decides before length does. Is is a verb, and all four guides capitalise verbs however short they are. The is an article, and articles are lowercase unless they are the first or last word. People assume short words are lowercase, but Do, Be, It and Is are all capitalised.
Which style guide should I use?
Whichever your publication follows. Journalism and press releases usually mean AP. Academic psychology and social sciences mean APA. Books and general publishing mean Chicago. Literature and humanities coursework mean MLA. If nobody has told you, pick one and stay consistent — the inconsistency is more noticeable than the choice.
How should hyphenated words be capitalised?
The guides differ and none is fully crisp. Chicago capitalises the second element when it is a full word, AP generally does the same, and APA capitalises both parts of a major hyphenated word. This tool capitalises both halves and flags that a hyphen was involved so you can check against your own guide.
Will it break NASA or iPhone?
All-caps words like NASA are left alone while the checkbox is on, because no algorithm can distinguish an acronym from someone shouting. Camel-cased brand names such as iPhone and eBay are not protected, since lowercase-then-uppercase is indistinguishable from a typo. Those still need checking by eye.
Does the title get sent anywhere?
No. The word lists and rules are built into the page and everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
