My previous post, “It’s a Dash-up,” is a good example of how to treat hyphenated compounds in titles. (I know I’m the cool kid who never uses uppercase letters on this site, but let’s pretend.)
First, here are some general rules for headline-style capitalization, according to Chicago:
- Capitalize the first and last words and all other major words.
- Lowercase articles (a, an) and conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor).
- Lowercase prepositions, unless they are used as adverbs or adjectives.
- Lowercase to and as.
For hyphenated compounds, like dash-up, capitalize the first element (Dash), but do not capitalize subsequent elements if they are articles, prepositions (up), or conjunctions.
So “It’s a Dash-up,” but “It’s a Dash-and-Run Post.”
(And just so you know, when referenced, titles of blog posts are put in quotation marks. Titles of blogs are italicized.)