TinyProf's Grammar Guide 📚✨

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1. What We're Solving

We need to determine whether the apostrophe in a possessive title (like Harper's Bazaar or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) should be italicized along with the rest of the title, or left in regular (roman) text.

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2. The Approach

To answer this, we need to understand what italics are actually doing in this context. Italics mark the entire title as a single unit, not individual characters based on their grammatical roles.

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3. Step-by-Step Reasoning

Step 1: Understand Why We Italicize Titles

Italics signal to the reader: "This whole thing together is a proper title." The formatting applies to the title as a complete unit, not to individual letters or punctuation marks based on their grammatical roles.

Step 2: Recognize That the Apostrophe Belongs to the Title

When an apostrophe appears within a title (like Harper's), it's part of the official name itself. It's part of the title's identity, just like every letter is.

Think of it this way: > The title is a package. Everything inside the package gets the same wrapping.

Step 3: Apply the Chicago Style Logic

Chicago Style treats the entire title string as the formatted unit. Since the apostrophe is a character within that title string, it follows the same formatting as the surrounding text — meaning it gets italicized too.

Step 4: Test It Visually

Compare these two options:

• Harper's Bazaar ← apostrophe NOT italicized (looks awkward and inconsistent)
• Harper's Bazaar ← apostrophe IS italicized (looks clean and unified)

The second version treats the title as what it is: one cohesive thing.

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4. The Answer

✅ Yes — the apostrophe should be italicized.

According to Chicago Style, when a title is italicized, all characters within that title — including apostrophes, hyphens, and other punctuation — are italicized along with it. The apostrophe is simply part of the title and receives no special treatment.

So you would write: > Harper's Bazaar > Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

...with the apostrophe fully italicized as part of the title. 🎬

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5. Memory Tip 🧠

> "Italics wrap the whole gift, not just the pretty parts."

When you italicize a title, you're putting a stylistic "wrapper" around the entire title as a unit. Everything inside — letters, spaces between words, apostrophes, hyphens — gets wrapped together. You never need to "un-italicize" a character mid-title! 🎁