Subtitles

Subtitles are common on non-fiction books and workplace reports. This entry discusses how best to reference them. When it comes to presenting them on document covers, you have more leeway with capitals and punctuation.

For our broader guidance on main titles, please see the ASG entries on publication titles and title case.

Capital letters
Use title case for the main title, but sentence case for the subtitle
Writing at Work: How to write clearly, effectively and professionally

For main publication titles, the ASG recommends using title case. This calls for an initial capital letter on each main word in the title.

For subtitles, we recommend sentence case. This gives due prominence to the main title and reduces the amount of capitalisation for any secondary text that follows.

Cindy Rellakis set out her thesis in the book, Marriage and Shoes: A spellbinding history.

As the ASG entry on headings outlines, we recommend sentence case rather than title case for the headings within a publication. This includes the headings for major sections such as chapters.

Where a major heading is formatted in 2 parts with a colon, apply the heading style of sentence case to it. This means that the initial word after the colon does not take a capital because it is part of a heading and is not a subtitle.

Chapter 2: riots in the digital age
Punctuation
Typically use a colon before the subtitle
Writ in Water: Memorial and self-expression in elegies for Keats

Although you might sometimes see an en dash separating a title from its subtitle, a colon is more common. There should be a space after the colon but not before it.

See also:   Publication titles,  Sentence case,  Title case