Most of these when-to-use-italics rules apply equally to words in body copy, head-lines and captions, and whether you are typesetting books, articles, stories or web-pages.
[1] The names of ships and aircraft; For example: The Caribbean Cruiser sank yesterday. This is the oldest when-to-use-italics rule. It allows the reader to quickly grasp what is being referred to in the message.
[2] The titles of poems; For example: As You Go Dancing by James Stewart is famous among the literati of the Arabian Gulf. This is another very traditional use of italics that enables quick reader-uptake.
[3] Foreign words; For example: We turned left and found ourselves in a cul de sac. Another very traditional use of italics that makes for quicker reading.
[4] The titles of books, newspapers, articles and stories occurring within a sentence without further explanation; For example: The Saturday edition of the Limerick Leader was always on the streets by Friday afternoon.
However titles that appear within larger works are not italicized but are set off in quotation marks; For example: 'An Irishman's Diary' in the Irish Times is sometimes interesting.
[5] Latin phrases used to classify living things; For example: Many people wonder why mankind is referred to as homo sapiens. Another use of italics that has been around ab aeterno.
[6] Where a word is used as an example rather than for its meaning; For example: The word Kennedy is a proper noun. This is neater than setting the noun within single quotes as in: The word 'Kennedy' is a proper noun.
[7] For introducing new terms; For example: In Freudian psychology reference is made to the ego, the super-ego, and the id. This is a neat solution to highlighting words that will probably be explained later.
[8] For the subjects of definitions; For example: An odd number is any number that cannot be divided by two. This is useful for the reader as, should he or she wish to refer back to the definition later, a word in italics among a sea of roman letters is easy to find.
[9] For mathematical symbols: For example: The standard acceleration of gravity g is 9.81183 metres per second per second. The symbol does not need to be surrounded by commas or single quotes which would be required if it were set in roman type.
[10] For emphasis; For example: Janice wasn't the only girl at the party. The use of italics for emphasis is less intrusive than bold and more subtly suggestive.
[11] To indicate a character's internal reflections in stories; For example: This just does not seem right, Janice thought. However many writers prefer other ways of expressing inner thoughts.
[12] Using a letter or number as a noun; For example: He was vexed because they had left out the d in his name. However many writers would prefer to put a letter or number used in this way between quotes: For example; He was vexed because they had left out the 'd' in his name.
That's about it for the when-to-use italics rules. Except, what should you do if you need to use italics within italics?
If some word or phrase that should be italicised is already within a run of italics, the trick is to switch back to roman type for that word or phrase; For example: I'm in a really weird situation, Janice thought.
This italics-within-italics solution works best when italics are used to highlight internal reflections.
Source from entireWeb Newsletter.
No comments:
Post a Comment