The Right Way to Write A Book Title In Your Essay

Essay writing is a practice where a writer delves into the subject matter and comes up with new insights. It is one of the oldest forms of writing and many established writers have tried their muscles on it before moving on to other formats.

When we compare basic essay writing with academic essay writing, there is one clear difference – the latter always has references and citations from the sources. Depending on the formats and themes, there are different ways writers need to add those references to the text.

In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the most popular ways to write a book’s name in an essay. We will also shed ample light on getting author(s) names, and other variations in a 2-page essay. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Importance of Writing The Title Of a Book In An Essay

Before we delve into the intricacies of either italicizing or making the author’s name bold in the text or the bibliography, it is best to understand why it is necessary to follow a certain methodology.

Whenever a writer claims that he has found a certain piece of information from a source, no one in academia is going to take his word for it. Instinctively, they are wary of the written word and it is their duty to vet all the sources and go through areas to ensure that all the bases are covered.

Since there is a large repository of books, publications, authors, and editors, the process of introducing a book in an essay needs to be uniform for all writers. Yes, there are many referencing methods but there are hardly variations in their inner circle. 

Now, whenever a reader comes up with cited information in an academic essay, he can easily consult the source and check whether the information is accurate or not.

3 Popular Formats For Writing The Title of A Book In An Essay

As mentioned in the previous section, following a uniform format can save both students and teachers a lot of time, not to mention the ease and convenience of covering all the bases in a simple yet effective manner.

In this section, we will take a look at 3 of the most popular formats to write a book name in an essay.

MLA Essay Format

Developed by Modern Language Association (MLA), the format has become one of the most widely-used and standard essay formats. In the beginning, it was used by students and researched in the literature and language areas, but quickly it has taken over the academic world.

One of the main reasons behind its popularity is that it has clear rules and principles to follow. For instance, contrary to Chicago and APA styles, it does not require a dedicated title page for an essay. All a writer needs to do is place the name in the header of the essay or paper in the upper-left corner of the first page.

Another thing that sets this style apart is that there is no distinction between referencing a book, a newspaper, an online publication, and so on.

APA Essay Format

APA or American Psychological Association is widely used by research papers in the field of behavioral sciences and social sciences. Compared to MLA, APA is more stringent and formal which is the reason it is used by academics in the highest echelons.

The rules in this formatting methodology dictate a title page which should have the name of the paper, the name of the writer, and the institution. According to the recommendations, the name of the title should not be longer than 12 words.

Another striking thing about the APA format is that it has an abstract in the beginning. An abstract is a short summary of the research for the 1000 words essay covering all the areas with ease.

The main body of the essays should be clear and concise with no room for flowery prose and paragraphs.

Chicago Essay Format

Chicago Essay formatting style is one of the rarely used styles by students. Also known as the Turabian style, it was developed by the University of Chicago Press. The manual has over 1000+ pages and each of the rules is stated and explained within the seminal work.

Instead of leaving the minutest things to the discretion of the writers, the style format has rules for everything. That’s why it is often used in history-related subjects.

Following the APA format, Chicago or Turabian style starts an essay or a paper with a title page and an abstract. 

One thing that sets it apart from other style manuals is its reliance on footnotes and endnotes, instead of in-text citations. Due to these reasons, many authors adopt this style to get a more streamlined look to their writing.

MLA Style Essay Format – How To Mention A Book In An Essay

Now that we have gone through the major essay formats and styles, it is time to go through how you can add a book title to the essay.

The MLA style format has the following guidelines for the writers, whether they are writing a full-length research paper or an essay in 1 hour:

  • Listing all the sources at the end of the paper is the first step. These should be added before the works cited and bibliography.
  • Writers should use italics for the titles of books, magazines, and newspapers. But this should not extend to the name of the article or chapter as they should be written in quotation marks.
  • Cover all the relevant information about the source in two distinct categories – title and author.

If you are in doubt and need to write a 5-paragraph essay in an hour, you can always use automatic reference generators that get relevant information and turn them into finished citations.

APA Style Essay Format – How To Write a Book Title In An Essay

APA style is one of the foremost methods to cite sources in life sciences and social sciences. When the instructor asks you to use the APA style, you need to keep the following rules in mind:

  • Write the author’s name first (surname, first name), and then write the book title in italics.
  • Writers need to use quotation marks around the headline of the chapter or the name of the article in a publication.
  • All the proper nouns in the title of the book should be capitalized but words like “and”, “or”, and “to” should not be capitalized at all.
  • There is no need to capitalize prepositions that are at the beginning of the titles when they are followed by an article. However, the rule will be null and void if they are not followed by such.
  • The first word of the title should be capitalized and all the first words after the colon or hyphen.

We know that for novice writers and students, this may seem like a lot to remember and follow. So, if you are looking for a pre-written essay, EssayZoo will be honored to oblige.

APA Style Essay Format – Mentioning The Name of The Author

While writing an APA-style essay, students can get confused while adding the author’s name to the bibliography. This confusion is not restricted to writers alone as readers and researchers also have got their heads scratching if they want to get to the bottom of the deal.

If you want to mention the name of the author in an essay for sale or a research paper, you need to follow these rules:

  • Mention the name of only one author, unless you have multiple authors to deal with.
  • If there are multiple authors, it is necessary to use the names of all. The way to write the names in this – write the initials of the first name and the surnames in reverse order.
  • When the number of authors is more than three, it is best to follow the above-mentioned principle. When that’s not the case, it is best to mention their full names.

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Chicago Style Essay Format – How To Put A Book Title In An Essay

As we have gone through the style in the earlier sections, it is one of the hardest and rarely used styles across institutions. Still, when you need to use this format to write a book title in your essay, the following are the guidelines to remember:

  • The name of the title should be at the beginning of the sentence.
  • The whole of the title should be capitalized like a proper noun.
  • The writer should always put a comma after the title. If it is an introductory clause or phrase, then they can let go of the rule.
  • The punctuation marks in the title, along with the rest of the title, should be italicized.

Again, if you are intimidated by the prospect of remembering all the nifty rules and guidelines, you can get a professional academic essay writer from EssayZoo to do all the heavy lifting for you. 

To Underline or Italicize The Book Titles, That’s The Question

Whether you just find the italics eye-pleasing or the underlines for the same reason, you cannot just do that out of your whims. Writers should always keep in mind that these are parts of the style guides and they cannot do these things on their own.

For instance, both MLA and Chicago Styles guide the researchers to use italics and underlines for the titles and authors, whereas APA style dictates that writers should use quotation marks to distinguish between the titles and authors’ names.

Final Thoughts

Academic essay writing is tough and there is no denying that. Many students fail to understand the intricacies of the concepts and end up at the bottom of the food chain. In this post, we have taken a deeper look at three of the most widely-used essay formats and styles. We hope that students will find the guide helpful in incorporating book titles and authors’ names in their essays and research papers. 

Those who are not up for the challenge, they can always rely on EssayZoo to do all the heavy lifting on their behalf. We even offer last-minute essay services where academic writers deliver a submission-ready essay within hours. So, feel free to connect with us now and get a custom essay within a couple of hours!

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