Whether with should be capitalized in a title or headline depends on several factors, notably, the style guide you are using and the position of with in the title. The following overview will cover the possible cases in detail.
Title Case
AMA, AP, APA, New York Times
In AMA, AP, APA, and New York Times style, with is always capitalized, because these styles capitalize all prepositions with four or more letters.
Connect With Your Audience
Playing With Fire
Bluebook, Chicago, MLA, Wikipedia
In both Chicago and MLA style, all prepositions are lowercased, independent of their length, while in Bluebook and Wikipedia style, all prepositions with four or fewer letters are lowercased. Therefore, with is generally lowercased in these four styles:
Coping with the Past
From Russia with Love
However, with must be capitalized if it is the first word of the title:
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
In Chicago, MLA, and Wikipedia style, the last word is also always capitalized:
A Force to Be Reckoned With
Bluebook style however does not have such a rule, so with remains lowercase when it is the last word:
Clients We Have Worked with
Sentence Case
Titles and headlines do not necessarily have to be written in title case. If you are using sentence case instead, then with is generally lowercased:
Go with the flow
The obvious exception are titles where with is the first word. In such a case, it is capitalized:
With or without you
Summary
The rules for capitalizing with can be summarized as follows:
Do not capitalize with if …
- you are using sentence case and it is not the first word of the title
- you are using Chicago, MLA, or Wikipedia style title case and it is neither the first nor the last word
- you are using Bluebook style and it is not the first word
Capitalize with in all other cases
If you haven’t already, try out the Title Case Converter, which will automatically capitalize with correctly in your titles.
Photo: Max van den Oetelaar
