Q. Hello. Looking for a bit of clarification on headings with parentheses. Should we avoid them? If parentheses are used, what is the proper way to use them in headline style? For example, is “Your Guide to College (And Beyond!)” the correct way to list this chapter title/heading? Thank you.
A. Parentheses are fine to use in a heading or title of any kind, provided you have a reason to use them; when you do, the punctuation marks are usually ignored when applying headline-style capitalization. For example, Chicago style would be to lowercase “and” in the title of R.E.M.’s 1987 hit song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).” Such capitalization isn’t currently covered in CMOS, but the logic is the same as it would be for an em dash used in place of parentheses, as in “Your Guide to College—and Beyond!” (see CMOS 8.164). For the periods in “R.E.M.,” an exception to our rule for initialisms in all caps, see 10.24.