Page 1065 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing
P. 1065
articles, poems, and short stories.
1. Chapter titles: “Revising and Proofreading,” “Introducing the
Essay”
2. Essays: “Migraine Blues,” “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”
3. Individual episodes of a TV series: “The Soup Nazi” (Seinfeld),
“Hawaii: Crucible of Life” (Nova)
4. Newspaper articles: “Climbers feared dead on Everest,”
“Braves Beat up Pirates Again”
5. Poems: “To His Coy Mistress,” “Harlem”
6. Short stories: “The Smallest Show on Earth,” “A Good Man Is
Hard to Find”
Italics and Underlining
Use of italics is the accepted way of setting off titles of longer works in
published material; however, underlining has long been an acceptable
substitute in handwritten, typed, and word-processed materials. The
Modern Language Association used to recommend the use of
underlining for clarity. However, the 2009 edition of the MLA
Handbook recommends use of italic type rather than underlining.
Therefore, if you are using a computer to write your document, use
italics. If you are writing by hand, use underlining.
Instructions for the exercises in this text tell you to underline, since
you will probably use pen and paper for the exercise. Keep in mind,
though, that underlining and italics do the same job.
