Should You Underline Book Titles or Use Italics? Let Us Find Out

Today we have a very important blog for writers of every kind because today we are going to talk about how you should do citations in your writings.

To break it down, if you ever write something that specifies other works in the form of titles and the names of the authors, then there is a special way to write it.

Today we are going to talk about that special way of writing the names of book titles in your works in the form of citations.

But if you are wondering what is the deal with book titles and how you should mention them, then it might be complicated depending on where you get your answer.

Your answer might be from a different source and completely different to that of your friend even if you are both writing the same thing.

Before we understand what to do with book titles and whether we should outline them, let us understand what’s the deal with this topic.

So, are books italicized or quoted or underlined? Let’s find out.

What’s The Deal with Mentioning Book Titles?

This is actually a highly contested subject because there are different academic circles and different literary circles that have different opinions about what you should do when you mention book titles.

The concept of underlining as well as using italics for book titles came into existence when people were writing essays and needed a way to tell their readers that this is a book title instead of getting it mixed with the regular body of the text.

So, underlining the title was simply an aid for the readers to understand something.

This then moved on to become an unofficial standardised technique that scholars began to follow as they started to underline the entire name of the title and even use italics for it.

So, will it be wrong if you do not underline the book titles mentioned in your text or do you italicize book titles or quote them?

Technically it will not be wrong to not do either but it all depends on the context and the publication.

In order to understand more about this, let us look at a few important things to keep in mind regarding underlining book titles.

Important Things to Keep in Mind Regarding Book Title Underlines and Italics

The Publication or Institution

The first thing you must keep in mind when you plan on using italics or underlines for book titles is the publication you are writing for.

If you are doing academic writing then you must keep in mind the rules and the general norms of the academic institution.

And if you are writing for a publication then you should look at the rules or the other works by the other writers to understand how people in this publication usually do it.

If you want to get it right then the best way is to look at some previous work in that same institution or publication and that way you can stay safe from critique.

Are books underlined in your school or university? Then underline it. If your institution wants it quoted, do it.

The Medium of Writing

One of the other important things you must keep in mind is also quite similar to the previous point of looking at the general rules of the publications and institutions.

We are talking about the medium of writing because if you think about it, a hundred years ago there were only two popular mediums, one being handwritten and the other being a typewriter.

But now the options have expanded a lot and we are talking about voice notes as well as online blogs, physical printed paper and even handwritten text.

So, if you have chosen a medium such as writing it in freehand then it might be difficult to add italics and you might be better with only underlining the titles or using quotations.

If you choose any online medium then you might need to hyperlink in the text and in that way, you do not even have to highlight it with the help of underlining and using italics.

If you plan on writing in the form of typing it out for physically printing it then you might need to choose the options between italics or underlining.

Consistency In Writing

If you are still finding it very difficult to decide about to do and you just want to start your writing career as a blogger or even a writer of columns then there is this option for you.

You need to follow a generalized rule and the generalized rule is that you can either use underlines or italics and you won’t be wrong about it.

But the thing to keep in mind is that you should stay consistent in utilising either of them in all the writing you do.

This means you need to have your own set of rules regarding what you want to do and keep things consistent throughout the text and throughout different pieces of text.

Consistency shows quality and if you can stay consistent throughout a series or even a paragraph or page then people will not have a lot of trouble with it once they understand why you are underlining something.

However, if you try following the rules but stay inconsistent throughout your text then it will send a message that you are text is not of a high quality.

Regard For Convenience

Last but not the least we must understand the entire purpose of underlining titles and it is actually very simple.

Why are books italicized or underlined?

The entire point of italics or underlining is simply to help readers understand that this is a title and then not part of the regular sentence structure.

It is just a way of helping people and it is just a tool of convenience.

This means if your intention is to help your readers then you can do it in any way possible and you do not have to think about anything other than that.

Forget the rules because this is something that has a primary purpose and it is to help readers understand something.

Apart from that, if you are a student, the only advice we are going to give you is to listen to your teachers and what they have to say about this. If they say you need to italicize book titles then do it.

Your university might prefer a different way of doing things and your friend’s University may do it completely differently.

That is why you need to stay consistent when it comes to following the rules of your university and your academic institution and if they say you need to underline a book title, do it.

And if you are someone who does nonfiction writing as a professional then the only advice we are going to give you is to stay consistent throughout your writing.

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