Mrs. Munnier – Literature 8 -- PCMS
Titles of radio programs and television shows
are also italicized or underlined, such as:
 Regularly aired radio
shows such as
 NPR’s Car Talk or All
Things Considered
 Television programs
such as American Idol
or even Monday Night
Football
Did you know that the titles of
works of art are italicized or
underlined, such as…
Starry Night by Vincent Van
Gogh… ?
The titles of famous speeches are
also italicized or underlined,
such as...
…Dr. Martin Luther King’s
I Have a Dream or
President Abraham
Lincoln’s Gettysburg
Address
Long poems that are extensive enough to
appear in books by themselves must be
underlined or italicized, such as
Homer’s the Iliad or the Odyssey…
or Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass.
Here’s more to remember, as if that
isn’t enough… Always underline or
italicized:
The titles of specific vehicles (trains,
planes, spacecraft, ships), such as:
The Titanic, Polar Express, and the
Challenger
ITALICIZE foreign words, such as the Italian
sotto voce.
Do not, however, italicize foreign words or
phases that have become so widely used
and understood that they have become
part of the English language, such as
adios or bon voyage
 We use italics (characters set
in type that slant to the right)
to distinguish words in wordprocessed documents.
 We also use underlining to
distinguish certain words –
both in word-processed and
hand-written documents
You have known since
elementary school that
QUOTATION MARKS
are used to offset material that
represents quoted or spoken
language.
Quotation marks are also used to set
off titles of things that do not
normally stand by themselves, such as:
Titles of short stories
articles
poems
and songs
In a written document, the use
of italics or underlining mean
the same thing. DO NOT use
both within the same text.
Stick to one or the other. If you
are unsure, ask your instructor
what he or she prefers.
Italics do not include
punctuation marks (end
marks or parentheses, for
instance) next to the words
being italicized unless those
punctuation marks are meant
to be considered as part of
what is being italicized: "Have
you read Stephen King's Pet
Semetary?” (The question
mark is not italicize here.)
When in doubt, just
remember NOT to
underline or italicize
punctuation at the ends
of sentences.
We generally underline or
italicize things that can stand
on their own. Here’s some
examples:
Names of newspapers, such as:
the New York Times or the Princeton Daily
Clarion.
Notice that the period after the previous
sentence is not underlined. Notice also
that the word “the” is not underlined,
either.
Titles of journals and
magazines are
underlined or italicized.
For example: Time
magazine… or Mad
magazine… or Sports
Illustrated... You get the
idea.
The titles of plays and movies are
underlined or italicized…
 Such as Romeo and Juliet
 Or your favorite vampire
movie…
Like Twilight…
The titles of long musical pieces
are underlined or italicized,
such as…
Tchaikovsky’s
Nutcracker Suite