Definition, Usage, and Examples of Italics

Definition, Usage, and Examples of Italics Italics  is a style of typeface in which letters slant to the right:  This sentence is printed in italics. Verb: italicize. In handwriting, the equivalent of italics is underlining. As shown below, italics are most commonly used for the titles of works that stand by themselves, such as the names of books, films, and video games.  Another customary use of  italics is  to give emphasis to key words and phrases in a sentence. Although its important to use italics appropriately in formal, academic  writing, italic type is not always available in less formal communications, such as in emails and text messages.   Etymology From the Latin, Italy Guidelines for Using Italics As a general rule, italicize the titles of complete works: Albums and CDs:  1989  by Taylor SwiftBooks: To Kill a Mockingbird  by Harper LeeMagazines and journals (print and online): Sports Illustrated, Slate, and  Journal of LinguisticsNewspapers: The New York TimesMovies: The MartianPlays:  A Raisin in the Sun  by Lorraine HansberrySoftware programs:  Microsoft PowerPoint  Television programs: Doctor WhoVideo games:  Grand Theft Auto VWorks of art: Nighthawks  by Edward Hopper The titles of comparatively short works- songs, poems, short stories, essays, and episodes of TV programs- should be enclosed in quotation marks. As a general rule, italicize the names of aircraft, ships, and trains; foreign words used in an English sentence; and words and letters discussed as words and letters: These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.From 1925 to 1953, a passenger train named the Orange Blossom Special brought vacationers to sunny Florida from New York.There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.Come kiss me, and say goodbye like a man. No, not good-bye, au revoir.Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the. As a general rule, use italics to emphasize words and phrases- but dont overwork this device: Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding.  Hours. Observations Italics rarely fail to insult the readers intelligence. More often than not they tell us to emphasize a word or phrase that we would emphasize automatically in any natural reading of the sentence.Think of italics as butterflies that might swoop across the page, allow them to flit about, land here and there, softly; gently; dont treat them as a blanket that must spread itself across the entire page. The butterfly approach will bring a dash of color; the blanket approach will darken everything.Underlining is to... handwritten papers what italics are to more formal publishing... Today the only widespread use of underlined text is to denote clickable links in Web documents. (The newspaper convention, which I use as a newspaperman and which was also a response to a technical inability to use italics, is quotation marks for book, movie, and other titles.) Pronunciation ih-TAL-iks Sources Title sequence of the original  Star Trek  TV series Phillip Franklin, Vice President of White Star Line William Graham, Chats With Jane Clermont, 1893 Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman J. D. Salinger,  The Catcher in the Rye, 1951 Paul Robinson, The Philosophy of Punctuation.  Opera, Sex, and Other Vital Matters. University of Chicago Press, 2002 William Noble,  Nobles Book of Writing Blunders (and How to Avoid Them). Writers Digest Books, 2006 Bill Walsh,  The Elephants of Style. McGraw-Hill, 2004