USING ITALICS AND UNDERLINING

An Introduction
We use italics (characters set in type that slants to the right) and underlining to distinguish certain words from others within
the text. These typographical devices mean the same thing; therefore, it would be unusual to use both within the same text and it
would certainly be unwise to italicize an underlined word. As word-processors and printers become more sophisticated and their
published products more professional looking, italics are accepted by more and more instructors. Still, some instructors insist on
underlines (probably because they went to school when italics were either technically difficult or practically unreadable). It is
still a good idea to ask your instructor before using italics. (The APA Publication Manual continues to insist on underlining.) In
this section, we will use italics only, but they should be considered interchangeable with underlined text.

These rules and suggestions do not apply to newspaper writing, which has its own set of regulations in this matter.

Italics do not include punctuation marks (end marks or parentheses, for instance) next to the words being italicized unless
those punctuation marks are meant to be considered as part of what is being italicized: "Have you read Stephen King's Pet
Semetary? (The question mark is not italicize here.) Also, do not italicize the apostrophe-s which creates the possessive of a title:
"What is the Courant 's position on this issue?" You'll have to watch your word-processor on this, as most word-processors will
try to italicize the entire word that you double-click on.

Titles
Generally, we italicize the titles of things that can stand by themselves. Thus we differentiate between the titles of novels
and journals, say, and the titles of poems, short stories, articles, and episodes (for television shows). The titles of these shorter
pieces would be surrounded with double quotation marks.
In writing the titles of newspapers, do not italicize the word the, even when it is part of the title (the New York Times), and
do not italicize the name of the city in which the newspaper is published unless that name is part of the title: the Hartford
Courant, but the London Times.

When to Italicize
When you italicize a word or a phrase, it gets noticed. However, italics (typeface that slants to the right) are a bit
understated and do not attract the same attention as say, bold or underline. When to use italics? There are certain style rules to
remember. However, italics are popularly used to call attention to certain words in a block of text. When you think about it if all
the words looked the same, reading would be a rather boring affair. One thing to remember for any typeface is not to go
overboard. If every other word is italics, it loses its effect and becomes less 'special.'

What to Italicize
Like so many rules in the English language, rules for italicization vary. Often italics and underline can be used
interchangeably. There are some style guides that prefer the use of underlining over the use of italics (and vice versa).
Here are, though, some rules of what to italicize. However, do keep in mind that for some of these categories below
underlining is also possible.

 Emphasis: When you want to emphasize a certain word or phrase in a sentence. (She was the only girl in the class who
got 100% on the exam.)
bold or italic One or the other, as little as possible
Bold or italic—always think of them as mutually exclusive. That is the first rule.

The second rule is to use bold and italic as little as possible. They are tools for emphasis. But if everything is empha-
sized, then nothing is emphasized. Also, because bold and italic styles are designed to contrast with regular roman
text, they’re somewhat harder to read. Like all caps, bold and italic are fine for short stretches of text, but not for
long ones.

Text that is neither bold nor italic is called roman.

Nevertheless, some writers—let’s call them overemphasizers—just can’t get enough bold and italic. If they feel
strongly about the point they’re making, they won’t hesitate to run the whole paragraph in bold type. Don’t be
one of these people. This habit wears down your readers’ retinas and their patience. It also gives you nowhere
to go when you need to emphasize a word. That’s no problem for overemphasizers, who resort to underlining
bold text or using bold italic. These are both bad ideas.