There is ongoing debate in the writing community about whether essay titles should be underlined or placed in quotation marks when they appear in the body of a paper. Both styles have legitimate arguments supporting their use, and different style guides provide differing recommendations. Let’s take a deeper look at the considerations surrounding underlining versus not underlining essay titles.
Perhaps the most common style promoted by style guides is to underline essay titles when they are mentioned within the body of the paper. The MLA Handbook, for example, recommends underlining titles of full-length works like books, published essays, movies, albums, television shows, long poems, and plays. For shorter works like chapters within a book or articles in periodicals, MLA advises placing titles in double quotation marks instead of underlining.
The logic behind underlining full titles is that it allows readers to easily distinguish the title from the surrounding text. Underlining serves as a clear visual cue that signifies to the reader that this particular group of words functions as a title, not normal text. It emphasizes the title and helps draw attention to it. Proper nouns for people, places, specific events or dates are also typically underlined to distinguish them from surrounding text.
Some style guides, like the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Stylebook, recommend placing all titles in italics instead of underlining. They argue that underlining dates back to typewriter conventions where italics were not possible. In the digital era, italics have replaced underlining as the preferred method of signaling titles. Italics are also cleaner and easier on the eyes than a solid line beneath text. They subtly offset the title without creating as harsh a visual separation from the surrounding text as underlining does.
For papers written by hand, some argue titles should be placed in quotation marks instead of underlined since it’s not possible to underline by hand. Quotation marks are a clear alternative that still manages to visually separate the title. Others counter that handwritten underlining is still preferable, especially for longer titles, as it creates needed emphasis without interrupting the flow of reading as quotation marks can.
There are also opinions that titles do not need special formatting at all if they are explicitly stated as titles through context clues and proper grammatical construction of the sentence. Readers would still be able to identify the title even without italics, underlining or quotation marks based on cues from the text itself. Others say removing all formatting risks missing titles that are subtle or introduced without clear labeling, confusing readers.
Another consideration is that different publishers and publication venues have adopted different standards. So maintaining consistency with a specific publisher’s guidelines is important. A paper submitted to a journal that follows Chicago style, for example, would be best served formatting all titles in italics rather than underlining to match the journal’s standards. Cross-referencing different style guides is also important for papers that may be distributed to varied audiences.
Overall, there are good-faith arguments on both sides of this debate. Reasonable people can disagree on the best practice. The most important thing is to choose one style and apply it consistently throughout the paper. Clarifying any titles in the text itself through grammatical context is also wise. For papers where the style has not been dictated, underlining, italics or quotation marks are all defensible options depending on an author’s preferences and intended audience. The goal overall is clear communication to readers through formatting that emphasizes but does not distract from titles.
While style guides provide general guidelines, the debate around underlining versus other title formatting illustrates there may be multiple valid approaches. Authors should evaluate their specific writing context and purpose to determine the optimal style. Consistently applying proper formatting, along with context clues in the text itself, allows titles to be identifiable without confusing readers—which is the overarching priority regardless of the specific technique used. This issue shows that technical writing details are open to reasonable disagreement; clarity and consistency for the intended audience should be the chief considerations.