Sentence Case vs Title Case: When to Use Each
Sentence case vs title case explained with examples, style guide rules, and a quick-reference cheat sheet. Find out which capitalization style to use for your content.
What is the Difference?
<strong>Sentence case</strong> capitalizes only the first word of a heading or title plus any proper nouns — just like you would capitalize a normal English sentence. Everything else is lowercase. <strong>Title case</strong> capitalizes the first letter of most words in a heading — specifically major words like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs — while leaving minor words (articles, short prepositions, conjunctions) in lowercase.
Which Style Guides Use Sentence Case?
Sentence case is increasingly favored in digital and tech contexts: <strong>Google Material Design</strong> — recommends sentence case for all UI text <strong>Microsoft Writing Style Guide</strong> — prefers sentence case for most headings <strong>The Guardian (UK)</strong> — uses sentence case for article headlines <strong>BBC</strong> — sentence case in headlines <strong>Shopify Polaris</strong> — sentence case for UI components and headings <strong>IBM Carbon Design</strong> — sentence case throughout
Which Style Guides Use Title Case?
Title case remains dominant in traditional publishing and American journalism: <strong>APA Style</strong> — title case for paper titles and journal names <strong>MLA Style</strong> — title case for work titles <strong>Chicago Manual of Style</strong> — title case in book and article titles <strong>AP Stylebook</strong> — headline style (title case) for news headlines <strong>The New York Times</strong> — title case for article headlines <strong>Most US news outlets</strong> — title case for headlines
Sentence Case vs Title Case for Blog Posts
For blog post titles, both styles are widely used. American content typically follows title case (HubSpot, Forbes, Content Marketing Institute), while many tech blogs and international publications lean toward sentence case (Stripe, Linear, Notion documentation). The most important rule: <strong>pick one and apply it consistently</strong> across your entire site. Mixing styles looks inconsistent and unprofessional.
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