Titles: quotation marks or italics?

The answer, as one might guess from English’s general contrariness, is “it’s not that simple.” The rule of thumb is, a short or partial work takes quotation marks; a long or aggregate work takes italics.

• In music, a song or movement takes quotes; an album or a suite takes italics: “Money” is the first track on the second side of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd; “I. Mars, the Bringer of War” is the first movement of The Planets by Gustav Holst.
• In film/video, a short subject or episode takes quotes; a feature or series takes italics: “Suited for Success” remains one of my favorite episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (and note the official lack of colon, by the way).
• For print, it’s not quite as cut and dried—The Chicago Manual, at least the editions I’ve used, recommends italics for “book titles”, which isn’t completely helpful for us here on Fimfiction. Based on the other rules in that section of the style guide, however, I’ve evolved this convention: quotation marks for any chapter (analogous to a series episode), or for any short story of less than 7500 words (analogous to a short-subject production); italics for any complete work of 7500 words or more.

I haven’t been completely consistent myself; early on I italicized the titles of the first four Equestria Girls featurettes under the “long work” rule. However, as the franchise expanded, eventually I decided they didn’t merit that status and should be considered episodes instead, taking quotation marks. The various “sub-series” titles do merit italics, though.

Are you confused yet?

Comments

[A.P.O.N.I.]

English! Whee!!

[PresentPerfect]

I just do whatever feels good at the time :B

[AugieDog]

I tend to go with:

17,500 words as the rough dividing line between quotation marks and italics since that's the dividing line between novelettes (long short stories) and novellas (short novels). Ah, adventure!

Mike

[ZanyZapper]

Trying to remember what I learned in school. I mostly forget the details tho. I don't really remember length having anything to do with it, but can't swear to it. I do know italics never figured in, because our only choices were handwriting or typewriter, so no way to really create italics. Unless you had a fancy IBM Selectric and an italic ball you could put in. That was early 80s so started getting the ability a few years later. But until then it was some combination of quotes and underlines.

[Dave Bryant]

5341406
I’m drawing on my knowledge as a professional typesetter and the conventions that developed over the centuries in English typography, as recorded in style guides such as The Chicago Manual. As for typewriters, in theory the same conventions would have held, just with underscore in place of italics.