Which titles take quotation marks and which take italics?

Part goes in quotation marks, whole goes in italics. Chapter in quotation marks, book in italics. Song in quotation marks, album in italics. Article in quotation marks, magazine in italics.

What if I am writing by hand?

Underline where you would italicize. A handwritten paper uses quotation marks for the short works and an underline for the long ones, and teachers read the underline as italics.

Do the titles on these sheets come from real works?

No. Every title on this page was written for the worksheet, so a student is never asked to recognize a book they have not read. The rule is about the punctuation, not the reading list.

7th grade punctuating titles of short works

7th grade punctuating titles of short works worksheets

A short work takes quotation marks around its title: a poem, a song, a short story, an article, a chapter, or one episode. A long work takes italics instead. Seventh graders write the quotation marks in and learn which kind of work each rule covers.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core L.7.2.

Each print is a different sheet with its own answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of sentences you'll fix

Fix each sentence.

Priya summarized Twelve Ways to Ruin an Experiment in one page.
Fixed: Priya summarized “Twelve Ways to Ruin an Experiment” in one page.
The club reads the column Debugging on a Deadline every month.
We sang The Long Way to the Coast for most of the drive.

Every print pulls a new set of sentences at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling gets a different mix.

What's on a 7th grade sheet

7th grade sheets draw from 42 sentences, 8 to a page. None of these sentences are on 6th grade sheets.

A few of the sentences, as the answer key corrects them:

The encyclopedia entry “Erosion” filled most of my note card.
The chapter “Rewriting the Charter” runs only eleven pages.
Ravi shared an episode called “The Server Room at Midnight” with us.

Fix it. Fix each sentence. 8 sentences to fix per page.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

The rule people remember is part and whole. A title that names a piece of something bigger goes in quotation marks; a title that names the whole thing goes in italics. A chapter sits inside a book, a song sits on an album, an article sits in a magazine. Seventh grade widens the list of short works to include news articles, encyclopedia entries, and episodes, which is what shows up in a research paper's citations. A pencil cannot write italics, so the sheet practices the quotation marks a student writes by hand, and the rule box covers the whole works, which get an underline on paper.

Watch for: The size of the work picks the dress: short works (poems, songs, stories, articles, chapters) take quotes; long works (books, movies) take italics in print or underlining by hand. The marks wrap the exact title, nothing more: capital letters inside the title help you see where it ends.

Common questions about 7th grade punctuating titles of short works

Which titles take quotation marks and which take italics?: Part goes in quotation marks, whole goes in italics. Chapter in quotation marks, book in italics. Song in quotation marks, album in italics. Article in quotation marks, magazine in italics.
What if I am writing by hand?: Underline where you would italicize. A handwritten paper uses quotation marks for the short works and an underline for the long ones, and teachers read the underline as italics.
Do the titles on these sheets come from real works?: No. Every title on this page was written for the worksheet, so a student is never asked to recognize a book they have not read. The rule is about the punctuation, not the reading list.

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Aligned to Common Core L.7.2. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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