Is "This" Capitalized in a Title?

Yes. "This" is a demonstrative pronoun ("This Is Us") or determiner ("This Old House"), and both are major words in every style guide. It is also four letters long, so even the guides with length cutoffs would capitalize it.

"This" by Style Guide

Style guide	"This" mid-title	Why
AP	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words
APA	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words
Chicago	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words
MLA	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words
AMA	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words
Bluebook	Capitalize	Pronouns and determiners are major words

Examples in Chicago Style

• This Is Why Your Headlines Get Ignored
• Read This before You Publish
• How This Small Change Doubled Signups
• This Old House

"This," "That," "These," and "Those"

All four demonstratives are capitalized in titles: "That", "These", and "Those" follow the same rule as "This." The only partial exception is Bluebook, which lowercases "that" when it works as a conjunction.

For the words that stay lowercase, see the full list of words that stay lowercase.

Real Titles With "This"

• This Is Us (TV series)
• This Old House (TV series)

"This" in Sentence Case

APA reference lists, many news sites, and most UI text use sentence case instead of title case. There, only the first word and proper nouns get capitals, so "this" is lowercase unless it starts the title: "Read this before you publish." Pick one of the two styles for a whole set of headings rather than mixing them.

Quick Answers

Should "this" be capitalized in a title?

Yes. "This" is a pronoun or determiner, capitalized in every style guide.

Is "this" capitalized in APA?

Yes. It is a major word and has four letters, so APA capitalizes it on both counts.