Are inverted commas optional in titles of books?

[Tan Elaine]

My favourite book is 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Are the inverted commas optional? Nowadays, I often see in the newspaper titles of books without inverted commas. Neither are they italicised.

Thanks.

 

[SoothingDave]

You should use quotes or italics. You are right that many don't do this anymore.

 

[konungursvia]

Quotes should not be used, only italics or underline for a book title. Quotes are for article or chapter titles, in a publication that must be bought as a larger whole.

 

[Tan Elaine]

Thanks, konungursvia.

It surprises me because I was never taught to underline a book title, but I was taught to use quotes.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've never seen or considered underlining a book title.

 

[5jj]

I've never seen or considered underlining a book title.

I seemed to recall that that was the style I used when typing essays half a century ago. I used quotation marks when i hand-wrote my essays.

The 'correct' style these days is the one insisted on by your teacher/tutor lecturer or your publisher's editor.

 

[konungursvia]

Here are the MLA and APA style guides, used by nearly all university scholars around the world. Some choose one, some the other, few use anything else.

MLA Tutorial - Bibliography and Works Cited
APA citation style · Library "How To" Guides · Help & Instruction · Concordia Libraries

Both of them italicise book titles (no quotation marks). Since the days of typewriters, underline is an equivalent to italics for this purpose, where you were unable to render actual italics.

 

[emsr2d2]

I generally use italics though the italics button doesn't work on this forum on my phone for some inexplicable reason so, if I'm responding from my phone, I always put titles in quotes.

 

[konungursvia]

That makes sense. Some people use the _underscore_ before and after as a means of mock italicization.