MLA vs APA: Which Headline Style Should You Use?

There is really one difference, and it is about prepositions. APA capitalizes any word of four letters or more. MLA lowercases prepositions at any length. Everything else – first and last word, major words, hyphenated compounds, the word after a colon – the two guides handle the same way.

The second difference is not about titles on a page but about titles in a list: MLA keeps title case in the Works Cited, APA switches to sentence case in the References.

The Same Titles, Both Ways

The last row is the point worth noticing: when a title contains no preposition of four letters or more, MLA and APA produce identical output. Most short titles fall into that category, which is why the two guides feel interchangeable until they suddenly are not.

Where the Threshold Bites

Reading down the MLA column below: every preposition stays lowercase. Reading down the APA column: the line falls between three and four letters.

Chicago sits between the two. Its 18th edition raised the threshold to five letters, so "with" stays lowercase but "about" is capitalized. The APA guide and the AP guide cover each in full.

What the Two Guides Agree On

Most of the rule set is common ground, which is why the difference above is easy to miss.

• First and last word are always capitalized, whatever they are.
• Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are capitalized at any length – including two-letter verbs like Is and Be.
• Subordinating conjunctions (Because, Although, If, When, That) are major words and get capitalized.
• Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) are lowercase in middle positions.
• Articles a, an, the are lowercase unless they open or close the title.
• The first word after a colon is capitalized.
• Both elements of a hyphenated compound are capitalized.

Works Cited vs References

This split catches people who learned one guide and then switched. It is not a capitalization preference so much as a different theory of what a reference entry is for.

APA's sentence-case rule applies to the title of the work being cited, never to the container. A journal or newspaper name keeps title case in both systems. Citing Titles in APA walks through each source type with worked examples.

Choosing Between Them

If a syllabus, journal, or house style sheet names one, that settles it. Where nothing is specified, pick one and hold it across the whole document – inconsistency reads as carelessness far more visibly than either choice reads as wrong.

To see the difference on your own titles, open the converter and switch between MLA and APA with the same text in the box. For the underlying rules shared by every guide, see what words are not capitalized in a title.

Frequently Asked Questions