We have all seen numerous film posters both on screen and on paper. When you look at the poster, what is it that catches your eye the most? You look at the elements and start imagining what the story could be. But have you ever noticed the font of the title of the film? You have to be very careful while selecting the font and style of your title because these minute details which are represented on the poster show the audience the core essence of your movie. In this article, we would learn how to use movie title in a paper, how to write a movie title in APA style, and various other aspects of writing movie titles.
1. Are Movie Titles Underlined?
Underlining a movie title or not depends on the style of writing you choose to adopt. As common people, we tend to ignore these details. But something like a font used in the title of a film poster is extremely valuable. Anyways, you just look at the poster and it truly acts as an eye-pleaser.
According to the commonly used writing or citing styles i.e. Chicago formatting style, American Psychological Association (APA), and Modern Language Association (MLA), you should not underline the movie titles. Instead, these styles put the titles in italics to deliver core emotions. Other writing styles such as Associated Press (AP) put up quotations for movie titles. But in no case are the movie titles underlined. (See What are Features of Blog?)
2. Are Movie Titles Capitalized?
Before understanding how to use movie title in a paper, let us learn about the way it is capitalized. There is some set of rules that need to be followed while capitalizing the movie titles like capitalizing the first word and pronouns as the first word which comes right after a dash or colon. However, these rules differ when it comes to writing the film title in an essay or on paper. While writing an essay, all the movie titles or television or radio show titles are always capitalized. The most broadly set of rules that are followed are:
- The first and last words of the title are compulsorily capitalized.
- Any sort of verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or pronouns in the title are compulsorily capitalized.
- Other parts of speech such as conjunctions and prepositions are capitalized if they are longer than three letters.
- Capitalize the first word following a comma.
- One example is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
3. Do you Italicize Movie Titles in a Paper?
With respect to italicization, the formatting techniques listed above work in the same direction for both essays and papers. The answer to this question is yes, we italicize movie titles in a paper. While referring to the movie title in the body of a paper, italicized font is used. (See What is a Text Structure Definition?)
4. How to Use Movie Title in a Paper?
Keep reading this answer and find out how to use movie title in a paper. The correct way to use a movie title in a paper is:
- List the full title and capitalize all nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Do not capitalize prepositions or conjunctions if they fall in between the title. Also, separate the subtitle with a colon and a space.
- Italicize the title if its source is independent so that its true meaning is not mislaid.
- The name of the film should be italicized, however, the name of a scene should be put in quotations. (Eg the Titanic movie and ”the sinking scene”)
- Place the title in quotation marks.
- If the title contains another title for example- a journal article or a short story or a play, mention the title of a work that the article is about, then write it in italics and place the title inside the existing title in quotations.
5. How do You Use a Movie Title in a Sentence?
Now that we are aware of how to use movie title in a paper, we should also acknowledge their use in a sentence. Using a movie title in a sentence is pretty much the same as using it in a poster or an essay.
- To start with, the start of a movie title should always be with a capital letter.
- All the nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs should be in the capital.
- All prepositions, articles (a, an, the), and conjunctions should not be capitalized unless they are bigger than three alphabets.
- And lastly, all proper nouns must always be capitalized.
6. Do you Underline a Movie Title in an Essay?
If you are writing an essay for your film classes, you need to mention the title of your film. Still don’t understand how to do it for an essay? Should the title be underlined, or not? Well, the answer is no. The titles of movies either written for paper or essays are never underlined. This rule is strictly followed by all writing styles. However, in essays, the title is always italicized. (See First full length movie ever made)
7. Is a Movie Title Italicized in APA?
Have you ever seen the APA style of writing which is followed to cite references? The APA style of writing film titles is very similar. In the APA style of writing, the title of the movie is in italics and not in quotation marks. (See What is the Cool S Font Called?)
8. How do You Write a Movie Title in APA Style?
Have you ever come across the format of APA-style writing or how to use movie title in a paper in APA style? If you have, you would know that it is a very calculated form of writing where the information is clearly imparted. Citing a movie title in APA format includes the director’s name in the author’s position followed by the title of the film written in italics in sentence case which is followed by the Film label in square brackets. The APA style looks like this:
Last name, Initials. (Director). (Year). Movie title [Film]. Production Company
Eg: Scott, R. (Director). 1979. Alien[Film]. Brandywine Productions. (See What are text features?)
9. What goes in Italics in APA?
APA style of technique is not just used for writing film titles but for citing other references as well. In this answer, we would discuss what goes into italics in APA in general. Titles of books, journals, webpages, periodicals, etc are written in italics. Important terms or phrases, general names, scientific names, chemical names, etc are all written in italics. (See What is intricate text in Grammarly?)
10. How do You Write a Movie Title in an Essay in MLA?
In the previous questions, we learned how to write a movie title in APA style. In this question let’s find out how to write a movie title in an essay in MLA. According to the MLA style, the title either appears in italicized or quotation forms. The title of the movie is in italic fonts and if there is a title inside the title meaning if there is a smaller part inside the title, place it inside quotation marks.
The article about how to use movie title in a paper was just an attempt to make you aware of the importance of fonts in movie titles and the different styles of fonts you can work with. We really hope after this article you would start analyzing fonts and their use on paper and in essays and you would never make the same mistakes most people do. (See Who Invented The English Alphabet?)
