Plays, Musicals, Books, and Films are NOT put in quotes!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:40pm

FYI

[gavrochegirl]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:42pm

I know. It's a really annoying thing. My teacher made us write a short scene, and said because someone was speaking, it had to be in quotes. It annoyed the heck out of me...but I got away with it, thank goodness.

[roquat]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:43pm

Should they be italicized, then? Or underlined? This is really eeire. I was just about to post a message (about "The Fantasticks") and I stopped and went back and put quotes around the title before posting it, and when I went back to the board I saw this message!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:46pm

It was beaten into our heads in school, too. :)

You can put these titles in Italics, Bold Print, Underlined or All Caps (and on BWW, I often just leave it as: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? if I don't feel like capitalizing)

Only songs, chapters, individual poems, newspaper and magazine articles, etc are put in quotes.

The film industry is bad bad bad---they put movie titles in quotes on posters!! Ugh! :)

Updated On: 8/27/05 at 01:46 PM

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:47pm

I had no idea this was such a bone of contention.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:48pm

Ha! You said bone! "Pippin"

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 1:50pm

HOW DARE YOU DESECRATE Pippin WITH QUOTATION MARKS!!!!!

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 2:04pm

OH DIDN'T THINK I WOULD DO IT WOULD YOU? WELL TAKE THIS!

"The Last Five Years"
"Parade"
"Urban Cowboy"
"Songs for a New World"

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 2:06pm

I know that technically they're not supposed to be put in quotes, but I still put show titles in quotations on the web because the message is easier to read, IMO, if the show title, etc. is sort of seperated from the rest of the text with quotations.

So, I MAKE MY OWN RULES!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 2:07pm

Ok, yo Is jist tryin' to hep. Fine if u wanna look ignant. It ain't no thang to me.

(though secretly I will think evil thoughts about you!)

[Taryn]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 4:10pm

However, song titles ARE.

[Kringas]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 4:26pm

And, just for the record:

Your is possessive
You're means "you are."

And an apostrophe only need follow or precede an "S" if you are making the word possessive (barring certain words like "hers" and "theirs". You don't use one when making a word plural.

Example:

That is Scott's. (Correct)

These taco's taste good. (Incorrect)

[Liz_Bennet]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 6:57pm

One must use quotation marks sometimes. I write for a newspaper whose primary mode of distribution is email, and it limits our formatting options a bit. Currently, we use quotation marks since there isn't really any other option except _Title_, which just looks stupid. We can't expand formatting until more of our 2000 subscribers read our HTML version, and they're slow to adapt.

I get confused when punctuating Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Is that right?

[Steve2]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:04pm

"I am not sure what you are talking about"

[timote316]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:09pm

I can never remember what gets quotes, what is underlined, what is italicized, whatever. I probably shouldn't have slept through English class these past 13 years...

[Kringas]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:15pm

Liz_Bennet, you wouldn't need the period if the sentence ends with the title. The question mark will serve as the ending punctuation for the sentence.

[Taryn]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:19pm

Also, there is no such word as "casted." The past form of cast is cast.

[freeadmission]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:19pm

This thread just made my night.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:29pm

I usually capitalize it.

[Marquise]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:42pm

As the rebellious being that I am I will now continually type out all titles in quotes:

"Wicked"
"Rent"
"West Side Story"

and just to piss people off even more, I'll take it a step further. i'll start calling every and all cast recordings soundtracks.

if you'll excuse me now i'm off to listen to my "sweeney todd" soundtrack.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:42pm

That's by Stephen Schwartz right?

[Marquise]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 7:43pm

Yes, he also composed "Evita"

[Fosse76]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 9:16pm

These MLA rules technically only apply to professional and academic writing. It is a standardized guide so that professionally published articles and papers are uniform and coherent. Technically, it isn't incorrect when you are chatting online or scribbling notes. If someone who worked at the MLA went to work for Harvard's Blubook publisher (the legal equivalent of the MLA handbook) they'd run screaming from the building.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 8/27/05 at 9:28pm

I know (trust me, I have a degree in English), but it's such a pain in the ass to do that italicizing thing on this board, and doing titles in all caps makes it seem like you're screaming it.

Posted: 8/27/05 at 9:51pm

But this is not chatting. This is posting messages on a board. Speed is not a priority and it takes less than 15 seconds to proof read a couple of lines. aight? Updated On: 8/27/05 at 09:51 PM