Case 1: The word after a colon (and a dash)
Whatever follows a colon in a title is treated as the start of a subtitle, and subtitles begin with a capital letter in every major style: Deep Focus: A Field Guide to Attention. This holds even when the next word is an article or short preposition that would otherwise be lowercase. APA extends the same promotion to the first word after an em dash used to introduce a subtitle. The mistake to avoid is the halfway version — capitalizing after some colons and not others in the same document. The rule has no exceptions, so apply it mechanically.
Note the rule is about subtitles, not every colon in running text. In a sentence-case heading like One warning: read this first, house styles differ — but in title case, capitalize after the colon every time.
Case 2: Hyphenated compounds
Hyphens create the most second-guessing per character of anything in title case. The working rules:
- Both halves major → capitalize both: Long-Term Planning, Self-Esteem, High-Impact Writing, Problem-Solving Skills.
- Minor words inside a compound stay lowercase: Day-to-Day Operations, State-of-the-Art Design, One-on-One Coaching — the to, of, the and on are doing their usual minor-word jobs.
- Compounds with prefixes: when the second element is just a suffix riding a prefix, guides such as Chicago capitalize only the first element: Anti-inflammatory, Co-founder. When both elements are real words, capitalize both: Anti-Hero.
- A hyphenated compound as the last word still obeys the last-word rule — capitalize its final element: How to Improve Your Follow-Through.
When in doubt, ask whether each element could stand alone as a meaningful word in the title. If yes, capitalize it; if it is glue (to, of, the), leave it lowercase.
Case 3: Short prepositions, long prepositions
Prepositions are the one part of speech the style guides genuinely disagree about, and the split is clean. APA, AP and AMA use a length test: three letters or fewer stays lowercase (of, to, in, on, at, by, up), four or more gets capitalized (With, From, Over, Under, Between, Through). Chicago and MLA lowercase all prepositions regardless of length — with, between, even notwithstanding. So Working With Sources (APA) and Working with Sources (Chicago) are both correct, in their own worlds. There is no universal answer; there is only your chosen guide's answer. The full split, with tables, is in our style guide comparison.
Case 4: Phrasal verbs vs. plain prepositions — the sneakiest case on this page
Compare these two correct titles:
- How to Set Up Your Studio
- Storage Costs up to 50% Less
Same two letters, opposite cases. In the first, up is part of the phrasal verb set up — it belongs to the verb, so it is capitalized like a verb. In the second, up to is a plain prepositional phrase, so up stays lowercase. The test: say the sentence without the little word. If the verb collapses or changes meaning (set your studio?), the particle is part of the verb — capitalize it. If the meaning survives (costs 50% less), it is a preposition — follow your style's preposition rule. The same logic gives you Log In Before You Start, Back Up Your Files, and Turn Off Notifications, versus a Cabin in the Woods and News from off the Coast.
Case 5: Proper nouns that break the rules on purpose
Title case never overrides how a proper noun spells itself. Three families to watch:
- Camel-case brands: iPhone, eBay, macOS keep their lowercase first letter even mid-title — and most guides advise rewording rather than opening a title with one, because the first-word rule and the brand's spelling collide awkwardly.
- Name particles: van Gogh, de Tocqueville, von Neumann follow the person's established usage, not title case. Write The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, keeping van lowercase, because that is how the name is spelled.
- Acronyms and initialisms: NASA, CEO, FAQ stay in full caps wherever they land. A converter cannot always know a word is an acronym, so scan the output before you copy it.
The principle: proper-noun spelling is a fact about the noun, and facts outrank formatting.
Case 6: The first-word and last-word rules
The two positional rules outrank everything else in title case. The first word and the last word are capitalized no matter what part of speech they are: The Art of the Possible, Something to Believe In, A Cause Worth Fighting For. Writers reliably apply the first-word rule (sentence habit does it for them) and reliably forget the last-word rule, because a trailing for or in feels minor. Positional rules beat part-of-speech rules — that is the hierarchy. And it cascades: in a title with a subtitle, the first word after the colon gets the same promotion (Case 1), and the last word before the colon does in some house styles too — check your guide if your title splits down the middle.
Case 7: A few words that refuse to behave
- as — lowercase in Chicago and MLA (whether comparison or conjunction), and lowercase under the length test anyway. Effectively: always lowercase mid-title.
- than — a conjunction most writers lowercase by instinct; Chicago lowercases it, length-test styles capitalize it (four letters). Better Than Before vs. Better than Before are both defensible — match your guide.
- so / yet / for — lowercase when they are coordinating conjunctions (Tired yet Hopeful), but capitalized when doing other work: So as an adverb (Why Prices Rose So Fast), For as the last word.
- to — lowercase as a preposition and lowercase in infinitives (How to Win) under every one of the five styles this site implements.
A 15-second checklist for any tricky title
- Run the title through the converter in your chosen style to get the mechanical rules right for free.
- Scan for colons — is the word after each one capitalized?
- Scan hyphens — is every standalone word in the compound capitalized, every glue word lowercase?
- Find the little words next to verbs — phrasal-verb particles up, plain prepositions down.
- Restore any proper-noun spellings (iPhone, van Gogh, acronyms).
- Check the last word. It is capitalized. It is always capitalized.
If a title survives that list, it will survive an editor. For the errors that show up long before these subtleties matter, start with the ten most common capitalization mistakes.
Frequently asked questions
- Is 'up' capitalized in a title?
- It depends on its job. Capitalize it when it is part of a phrasal verb ('How to Set Up Your Studio', 'Back Up Your Files'); lowercase it when it is a plain preposition ('up to 50% Less'). Test by removing the word — if the verb's meaning collapses, it is part of the verb.
- Do you capitalize both words in a hyphenated title word?
- Capitalize both elements when both are real standalone words ('Long-Term', 'Self-Esteem'), but keep minor connecting words lowercase ('Day-to-Day', 'State-of-the-Art').
- How do you capitalize iPhone at the start of a title?
- Brand spellings beat title case, so 'iPhone' keeps its lowercase i even mid-title. Most editors avoid the conflict at the start of a title by rewording so the brand name is not the first word.
- Is the word after a colon capitalized in a title?
- Yes, always. APA, Chicago, AP, MLA and AMA all capitalize the first word of a subtitle after a colon, even if it is an article like 'the' or 'a'.