Each word in the title of the book should be written with a capitalized letter except prepositions like at of in on etc for example breakfast at tiffanys by truman capote to the lighthouse by virginia woolf a river runs through it and other stories by norman maclean lord of the flies by william gerald golding etc. Writing the title of a book in an essay in chicago style chicago and mla book title and author formatting styles are similar the rules capitalize the first letter of all nouns adjectives and verbs in the book name do not capitalize articles coordinating conjunctions or prepositions. How to write a book title in an essay in apa style apa title page capitalization is required for the first word and the words which have more than three letters title capitalization is also required for hyphen words and colon words try to not write italics and catalogs instead of this use quotation symbol. Hold the key down and drag your cursor over the title of the book lift your finger and avoid clicking on the mouse the title should remain highlighted if the highlight bar goes away try again making sure that you dont click anywhere on the page after you highlight the book name