Generally, we italicize the titles of things that can stand by themselves. Thus we differentiate between the titles of novels and journals, say, and the titles of poems, short stories, articles, and episodes (for television shows). The titles of these shorter pieces would be surrounded with double quotation marks.

In writing the titles of newspapers, do not italicize the word the, even when it is part of the title (the New York Times), and do not italicize the name of the city in which the newspaper is published unless that name is part of the title: the Hartford Courant, but the London Times.

Other titles that we would italicize include the following:

• Journals and Magazines: Time, U.S. News and World Report, Crazyhorse, Georgia Review
• Plays: Waiting for Godot, Long Day's Journey Into Night

• Long Musical Pieces: Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite (but "Waltz of the Flowers"), Schubert's Winterreise (but "Ave Maria"). For musical pieces named by type, number and key — Mozart's Divertimento in D major, Barber's Cello Sonata Op. 6 — we use neither italics nor quotation marks.
• Cinema: Slingblade, Shine, The Invisible Man
• Television and Radio Programs: Dateline, Seinfeld, Fresh Air, Car Talk
• Artworks: the Venus de Milo, Whistler's The Artist's Mother

• Famous Speeches: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Washington's Second Inaugural Address (when that is the actual title of the speech)

• Long Poems (that are extensive enough to appear in a book by themselves): Longfellow's Evangeline, Milton's Paradise Lost, Whitman's Leaves of Grass
• Pamphlets: New Developments in AIDS Research

We do not italicize the titles of long sacred works: the Bible, the Koran. Nor do we italicize the titles of books of the Bible: Genesis, Revelation, 1 Corinthians.

When an exclamation mark or question mark is part of a title, make sure that that mark is italicized along with the title,

• My favorite book is Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
• I love Dr. Suess's Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Do not add an additional period to end such sentences. If the end mark is not part of the title, but is added to indicate a question or exclamation, do not italicize that mark.

• Did you enjoy Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain?