Title Case vs Sentence Case: A Simple Guide

Whether you are writing a blog headline, drafting a marketing landing page, designing a mobile app user interface, or preparing an academic paper, choosing between Title Case and Sentence case is one of the most frequent editorial decisions you will make.

In this guide, we break down the grammatical rules for both styles, explain major style guide conventions (AP, Chicago, APA), and explore why modern digital products are increasingly adopting sentence case.

What is Sentence Case?

In Sentence case, you capitalize only the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns (names of specific people, brands, places, or official acronyms), just like a standard sentence in a paragraph.

• "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
• "How to deploy your Astro website to Cloudflare Pages"
• "Account settings and notification preferences"

What is Title Case?

In Title Case, you capitalize the first letter of all major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns). Minor words—such as short prepositions, conjunctions, and articles—are kept lowercase unless they are the first or last word of the title.

• "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog"
• "How to Deploy Your Astro Website to Cloudflare Pages"
• "When to Use Snake Case in Modern Software Engineering"

Which Words Stay Lowercase in Title Case?

Across major editorial style guides (Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press / AP, and APA), the following short grammatical words are typically written in lowercase:

• Articles: a, an, the
• Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet
• Short Prepositions (fewer than 4 or 5 letters): as, at, by, for, in, of, on, per, to, via, with

Exception: If a minor word is the first or last word in the headline or subtitle, it must ALWAYS be capitalized.

Quick Reference Chart

Effortless Conversion

Unsure whether a headline has proper capitalization or need to convert all your button copy from Title Case to Sentence case? Use the Word Case Converter tool to switch styles with a single click in real time!