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Which sentence is correctly punctuated?

  • (A) They would probably title the article man: dog's worst friend.
  • (B) They would probably title the article: Man, dog's worst friend.
  • (C) They would probably title the article, man: dog's worst friend.
  • (D) They would probably title the article Man: Dog's worst friend.
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    None of them. The title should be in quotes.
    – Daniel Roseman
    Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 11:11
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    I just searched for the quoted string "hawaii heaven on earth" in Google Books. The first three results feature (1) colon, (2) full stop, (3) comma. Take your pick - I've closevoted as "primarily opinion-based".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 11:17

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As pointed out in the comments, when naming an article or any other piece of short media (e.g. short stories, poems) we put the name in quotes. For longer works (e.g. books, albums, newspapers) we use italics.

For the example you give, the title of the work should be capitalized, enclosed in quotes, and, since it is the indirect object of the verb 'to title,' no punctuation has to proceed it (though a comma or a colon would not be unusual). Style guides vary as to how exactly to capitalize words in titles, but a rule of thumb is that nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, particularly when longer than three letters, should be capitalized. One way you might see this written is:

They would probably title the article "Man, Dog's Worst Friend."

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  • Could we use a colon instead of the comma?
    – Kirollos Aziz
    Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 12:18
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    Certainly! A colon might even be more usual than a comma here.
    – George K.
    Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 12:56

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