Formatting Peeves

Not pets of any kind, just common problems you can fix before your readers trip over them

I love italics. I do.

But not when I can’t figure out why you are using them.

This is sometimes because you’re using them in some random way that doesn’t make any sense, but most of the time it’s because you’re trying to do too many things with them.

And by “too many” I mean “more than one carefully considered purpose for this story or article.”

Italics are seductive because they can be used for so many purposes:

• foreign languages,

• telepathy,

• voices only the POV character can hear,

• interior monologue or dialogue (arguing with oneself),

• emphasizing key words or showing verbal emphasis in dialogue,

• denoting whispered or subvocalized speech,

• denoting the name of a ship or the title of a book or periodical

All of these are acceptable current English usage for italics in publication, whether print or online.

But italics can only carry one semiotic meaning at a time in a reader’s mind (unless you have super-clear context cues to denote different meanings, and even then, more than two clearly defined roles for italics is risky). It is best to limit your use of italics in any particular story to just one, possibly two purposes. Otherwise, each time your readers run into italics they will have to puzzle out what they might mean.

So please, for the love of italics, pick one purpose for them and use them consistently in each story you tell, in each essay you write.