To italics or not to italics

That is the awkwardly-worded question.

Italics are often misused and overused because, like bolding, capitalising, and headlines, there are no clear and easy rules around how much to use italics. And sometimes italics get misused and overused for sillier reasons. For example, I use italics because I feel like italics have a saucy personality. Almost like when you write in italics it's your drunk aunt making dark, faux-whispered jokes at Christmas lunch. But using italics according to your own weird rules can be confusing to your readers.

In a previous lesson, we spoke about creating a hierarchy. Using bold to draw attention and headings of different sizes to organise text can be really helpful to create a strong hierarchy. Italics are also a good tool for creating a strong hierarchy but at the bottom of the pecking order. Italics are Cousin Greg in Succession or Mort in Bob's Burgers or Tommen in Game of Thrones (remember him? What a nerd). A strong support role but they should never be really visible in your writing.

Why can’t I use all italics, all the time?

There's a practical reason for this shunning of the slanted text - words written in italics are harder to read. The difficulty varies based on the font you use, the line spacing, the kerning, etc. But generally, a paragraph written in italics will be harder to read than a paragraph in roman, which is, weirdly, the word used to describe non-italicised text.

Italics has always been used loosely to emphasise and organise different parts of writing. But usage is changing. Let's rein it in and define when and where to use italics.

When to use italics

A general rule is to use italics sparingly and consistently in these contexts:

• When writing out the title of something*.
  The film She's the Man is based on Twelfth Night, a play by William Shakespeare.

• To emphasise a part of a sentence.
  "I can do this. I am a dude! I am a hunky dude! I’m a badass hunky dude!” is something Amanda Bynes says to herself in She's the Man.

• In headings.
  Chapter 4: Themes and symbols in She's the Man
  Gouda and what it really means

One more thing: Break these rules if you feel like it. You might notice that I sometimes put the examples in italics or and I always put the TL;DR in italics. I like it, okay! Do what you want, just be aware of what you're doing.

TL;DR? Use italics sparingly when writing out publication titles, emphasising parts of the sentence, or in headings.

*Using italics to differentiate titles is also kind of complicated. It can sometimes be tricky to define what is and isn't a publication. If you use italics to define the titles of publications, try not to use italics for anything else.