Serial Comma, Title Case & -ise/-ize Across the Guides
Three little flashpoints turn up again and again — in emails from freelancers, in student queries, in the odd 2 a.m. message from a fellow editor. Almost none is a matter of right and wrong. It's usually "which guide is on the desk, and is that the same as the country you're writing for?" So here are the four guides pointed at the three points, with what the guide recommends kept cleanly apart from what the region tends toward — because that gap is the whole story.
1. The serial (Oxford) comma
The comma before the final and in a list of three or more: apples, oranges, and bananas (with) versus apples, oranges and bananas (without).
Home: this is taught in P6 · Punctuation — commas and list punctuation.
| Guide | What the guide recommends | What the region tends toward |
|---|---|---|
| APA | Requires it in a series of three or more items. | US: standard in edited American prose. |
| MLA | Requires it. | US: expected across US academic writing. |
| Chicago | Requires it — so often that some call it "the Chicago comma". | US: near-universal in US book publishing. |
| Oxford / New Hart's Rules | Recommends it where it aids clarity — the "Oxford comma" is named for OUP. | UK: general and journalistic practice tends to omit it in simple lists; legal and much academic writing keeps it. |
On this point the four guides converge and the two regions diverge — that's the pattern worth remembering.
2. Title case (titles of works and major headings)
Which words take a capital in a title or heading: The Future of Remote Work (title case) versus The future of remote work (sentence case).
Home: this is taught in P7 · Capitalisation — titles and headings.
| Guide | What the guide recommends | What the region tends toward |
|---|---|---|
| APA | Title case for titles of works in the text and for Level 1–2 headings; sentence case for titles in the reference list. | US: title case common for headings and displayed titles. |
| MLA | Headline-style (title case) for titles of works. | US: title case is the humanities norm. |
| Chicago | Headline-style (title case) for titles and headings; capitalise the first word after a colon. | US: the de facto standard across US publishing. |
| Oxford / New Hart's Rules | Leans to sentence-style capitals for headings and many running titles; title case used more sparingly. | UK: sentence case favoured for headings in much UK non-fiction; title case still common for book titles. |
Here the US guides and US practice both pull hard toward headline-style capitals, while Oxford and UK practice leave more room for sentence case — the guides and the regions line up.
3. -ise / -ize spelling
The suffix on verbs like organise / organize, recognise / recognize.
Home: this is taught in P8 · Spelling, Morphology & Word Choice — spelling systems (-ise/-ize).
| Guide | What the guide recommends | What the region tends toward |
|---|---|---|
| APA | The -ize forms, following US spelling. | US: -ize is standard. |
| MLA | The -ize forms. | US: -ize is standard. |
| Chicago | The -ize forms. | US: -ize dominant in edited American prose. |
| Oxford / New Hart's Rules | Prefers -ize as OUP house style (for verbs from the Greek -izo), keeping -ise for words such as advertise and exercise; Hart's notes -ise is also widely used in British English. | UK: -ise dominant in most newspapers, government and trade publishing; OUP and some academic lists keep -ize. |
This is the classic trap. Many people assume British = -ise, but Oxford itself prefers -ize on much of its own list. The three US guides and US usage are locked on -ize; UK everyday practice mostly writes -ise.
"The guide says X" and "this region usually does Y" are two different claims — keeping them apart is what this page is for. The full teaching lives in P6 · Punctuation, P7 · Capitalisation and P8 · Spelling, Morphology & Word Choice; for the wider comparison see the Pillar 12 style overview, the style matrix, and the Oxford / Hart's snapshot.