Chicago Style and MLA Style produce nearly identical title case output. Both lowercase articles, short prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions. The meaningful differences are in citation format, not capitalization.
Chicago Style capitalizes all major words and long prepositions while lowercasing short prepositions of four letters or fewer, articles, and coordinating conjunctions. It is the dominant style for American book publishing.
Chicago Style is required for most manuscripts submitted to book publishers, literary journals, and academic presses. Scholars in the humanities default to it.
Open Chicago Style converterMLA Style capitalizes all principal words while lowercasing articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions unless they open or close a title. It follows the Modern Language Association Handbook.
MLA Style is required for papers in English literature, film studies, and other humanities disciplines at most universities. It is the most common format for undergraduate academic writing.
Open MLA Style converterChicago Style is required for most manuscripts submitted to book publishers, literary journals, and academic presses. Scholars in the humanities default to it.
Prepositions of five or more letters are capitalized. Short prepositions like in, on, at, by, and of remain lowercase.
MLA Style is required for papers in English literature, film studies, and other humanities disciplines at most universities. It is the most common format for undergraduate academic writing.
Verbs are always capitalized, including short ones like is and are. The rules closely resemble Chicago Style for most practical purposes.
Choose Chicago Style for books, academic journals that specify it, and humanities scholarship outside of English departments.
Choose MLA Style for English literature papers, film studies essays, and any course or journal that specifies MLA format.
A title formatted in Chicago Style will almost always be acceptable in MLA format and vice versa. Writers should focus on the citation and bibliography rules, which differ significantly between the two.