39 Capitalization Rules: Continued Proper nouns are specific people, places, and things. Proper nouns are capitalized. Titles of books, poems, songs, movies, plays, newspapers, and magazines are proper nouns and are capitalized. In a title, capitalize the first and last words, and capitalize all other words except a, an, the. Do not capitalize short prepositions such as of, to, in, on, etc. Most titles are also underlined or set in italics. Short works (song titles, chapter titles, essays, poems) are placed in quotes. Titles associated with names are also capitalized, but do not capitalize these titles if they are not directly used with the name. EX. Before Dr. Ames became a doctor, he taught biology.