The correct punctuation for titles in MLA style writing is driving me crazy

[QQBlansh]

I consider myself a pretty organized person. I color-code my notes, I love a good checklist, and I actually enjoy the structure that MLA style writing provides. It’s like a recipe for a paper—if you follow the ingredients, it should turn out right, yeah?

But there is one thing that absolutely throws me into a spiral of anxiety: punctuating titles correctly. I get the big rule: books and movies are italicized, short stories and poems are in quotation marks. Simple enough. But what about a lecture? A TV episode? A painting? A song on an album? Every time I think I have it figured out, I find an edge case.

Last night I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to cite a TikTok video for a pop culture analysis paper. Is it a "short work" or part of a larger series? Does the username count as the author? It’s a nightmare! I love that MLA style writing gives us a standard, but does anyone have a cheat sheet or a mental shortcut for knowing what gets italics and what gets quotes without having to google "Purdue OWL MLA titles" every ten minutes?

 

[OwenLirr]

Here's my mental shortcut cheat sheet that saved my sanity:

ITALICS (Big/Standalone Things):

• Books, novels, textbooks
• Movies, TV shows (the whole series)
• Albums, podcasts (the whole show)
• Newspapers, journals, websites
• Paintings, sculptures, ships
• Video games

QUOTES (Small/Parts of Things):

• Book chapters, short stories, poems
• TV episodes, podcast episodes
• Songs, individual articles
• Lectures, presentations, papers
• Social media posts (including TikToks!)
• Web pages (but not the whole site)

The TikTok Specific Chaos:
Username = author. Title = description or first few words in quotes. Platform = TikTok in italics. Date posted. URL.

Example:
@dragqueen. "5 makeup hacks for beginners." TikTok, 12 Oct. 2023, link to tiktok video.

You're doing great. MLA is hard and anyone who says otherwise is lying.