How to Capitalize Titles - the Correct Way

Since I joined JetPunk more than a year ago, I've seen many JetPunkers have their quizzes' titles capitalized incorrectly, so I decided to write a blog about this in an attempt to standardize the capitalization of titles across all of JetPunk.

So, why does it matter to capitalize your quizzes' titles the right way? The simple answer is that your quizzes' titles are something that other people see more frequently than anything else - they can be seen even if people don't play your quizzes. This means that a properly capitalized title can leave your quiz-takers a good first impression and help your quizzes gain popularity. In contrast, a poorly capitalized title may appear ugly to some people, leading to lower numbers of takes.

Don't be worried though - it's really that easy and you'll be able to see the effects right away!

In order to capitalize titles correctly, you must have the basic knowledge of the parts of speech in English. The nine parts of speech in the English language are:

✔ Nouns. A noun is the name for a person, place, thing or idea.

✔ Pronouns. A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition.

✔ Verbs. A verb is a word that describes an action.

✔ Adjectives. An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun.

✔ Adverbs. An adverb is used to describe a verb, an adjective, or even another adverb.

✔ Prepositions. A preposition shows the relations between a noun or a pronoun and another word in terms of space, time, or role.

✔ Conjunctions. A conjunction is a word that joins two words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence.

✔ Articles. An article is attached to a noun and always comes before the noun. Articles are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax.

✔ Interjections. An interjection expresses someone's emotion or reaction. Interjections may stand alone in their own sentence or even paragraph.

Now that you know the parts of speech, it's time to discuss the correct way to capitalize titles. To do that, you need to know which words you should capitalize and which ones you shouldn't. The rules are not complicated, and believe it or not, they are super easy to remember.

Which Words Must Be Capitalized?

You should capitalize ALL nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and interjections.

Also, the first word and the last word in the title must be capitalized regardless of their parts of speech.

You should capitalize all conjunctions as well, with a few exceptions (see below).

Which Words Must NOT Be Capitalized?

You should NOT capitalize articles: "a", "an", and "the".

In addition, you must NOT capitalize the coordinating conjunctions: "for", "and", "nor", "but", "or", "yet", and "so". You can use the handy acronym "FANBOYS" to remember these words.

Furthermore, prepositions that contain five or fewer letters should never be capitalized. Meaning, you should capitalize any prepositions that are six or more letters long.

Right now you may be wondering what you've just read. Relax - let's now take a look at some examples of incorrectly capitalized quiz titles and their correct versions. These examples are taken from this page, and all quiz titles are italicized. If I spelled anyone's name incorrectly, please let me know.

(Disclaimer: By including these examples, I am not insulting or trying to insult the quizmakers in any way. These quiz titles are included for demonstration purposes only.)

Example #1 (quiz by Josussy, updated Feb. 4, 2022)

Quiz title: name every smartest server character

Correct version: Name Every Smartest Server Character

Comment: In this quiz title, all words should be capitalized, but none of them are. I don't know what exactly is happening here, but I guess it's just because the quizmaker was in a hurry.

Example #2 (quiz by NBANFLQUIZZES, updated Feb. 3, 2022)

Quiz title: Player with highest % to make NFL HOF on every team

Correct version: Player with Highest % to Make NFL HOF on Every Team

Comment: Since we're correcting the capitalization of quiz titles, let that grammar error stand for now. This quiz title is in sentence case, which is incorrect as what we need here is title case. All words are capitalized incorrectly except for "Player", "with", "to", "NFL", "HOF", and "on".

Example #3 (quiz by ProudSteelersFan, updated Feb. 3, 2022)

Quiz title: Cities Home To NFL Stadiums

Correct version: Cities Home to NFL Stadiums

Comment: This one is much better than the two examples above, but "title case" is not the same as simply capitalizing every word. The word "to" is a preposition that's just two letters long and thus should not be capitalized.

Title capitalization is not something that's super hard to do, and I believe everyone can do it. If you still don't think it matters after reading this blog, I suggest that you give it a try when creating your next quiz. It can really give your audience a good first impression, letting them believe that your quizzes aren't that bad. As a result, you'll receive an immediate, though possibly minor, boost in your take counts.

Thanks for reading, and happy quizzing!