Title Case vs Sentence Case: When to Use Each

What is title case?

Title case capitalizes the first letter of most words in a heading. The major style guides agree on capitalizing nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns. Where they differ is on smaller words.

Chicago Manual of Style capitalizes everything except articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or), and short prepositions (in, on, at, by) — unless they start the title. AP Style is similar to Chicago but capitalizes prepositions of four or more letters. APA capitalizes all major words and all words of four letters or more.

Example in title case: "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog"

What is sentence case?

Sentence case capitalizes only the first word of a heading and any proper nouns. It matches the capitalization of a normal English sentence.

Example in sentence case: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"

Sentence case is increasingly preferred by modern publications, including The Guardian, BBC, and many technology companies. It reads as more conversational and is easier to process at a glance, especially for web interfaces and mobile screens.

When to use title case

Use title case for book, film, and album titles. Newspaper and magazine headlines under AP style use title case. Product names and brand names are typically title case. Academic paper titles under APA, MLA, and Chicago style use title case. Professional reports and formal documents conventionally use title case for section headings.

If your organization uses a formal style guide, follow its specific rules for which words to capitalize in title case — the differences between AP, Chicago, and APA are meaningful in professional publishing contexts.

When to use sentence case

Use sentence case for blog post and article headings on modern web publications. Email subject lines written in sentence case feel more personal and conversational. Social media captions, UI copy in products following Material Design or Fluent Design guidelines, and button labels all typically use sentence case.

Many technology companies — including Google in its Material Design guidelines — explicitly recommend sentence case for interface copy because it feels less formal and is more readable at small sizes on mobile devices.

The most important rule: consistency

The most important rule is not which style you choose — it is consistency. Mixing title case and sentence case within the same document or website makes the content look unpolished and unedited.

Choose one style and apply it everywhere. If you use title case for H1 headings, use title case for H2 and H3 headings too. Proper nouns — names, places, brand names, product names — are always capitalized regardless of the style you choose.