We often see writers using italics in their writing, as and when they wish to. Sometimes writers use italics to highlight some content they wish to like a quotation or a proverb. In fact, most of the times, at their free will, we see writers using italics to highlight, beautify or showcase their content. There are some facts in English language that are related to the use of italics. If you haven’t heard of them before, don’t forget to do so now and note then down for all your further writing attempts.
- Italics can be used when you are incorporating few words from a foreign language in your content.
- Italics has to be used to write algebraic expressions. For instance, when you are writing the value of “x” in any formula, so “x” has to be in italics.
- Like I said before, italics is used by writers for the purpose of emphasis on a specific word, however it should not be done in the case of formal, especially academic writing.
- In some places, if you feel the dire need to emphasise on a specific word and you feel the content would be incomplete without it. It is a good idea to mention in brackets, just next to the word that the purpose of italics is to emphasise on the word.
- Most of the styling guidelines such as APA & Chicago Manual of Style have their own specifications about the use of italics and according to the guidelines, most of the Latin words are not italicised.
As a researcher you must be careful of not overusing italics as it may create a negative impact about your research rather than solving the purpose you had in your mind. In a state of complete ignorance, often writers try to beautify their document by using italics liberally but it goes against the norms of formal academic writing often supervisors feel put off with over use of italics. The writing shouldn’t be just simple and easy in terms of content but also simple and as much as possible uncomplicated in terms of font and formatting. When you do that, you send a message to your reader that your content is strong enough to not need the support of complexity in language or display. It is sufficient in its strength to engage you as a reader.