Premise

No, “Italics” is not the study of some obscure Italian subject. Rather, it is the art of adding emphasis to words via italicizing them, like this.

As with most advanced grammar, punctuation, and formatting techniques, the “how” is only the first step. So “why” might you want to do this? Good question. The simple answer is that you can increase your emphasis, as mentioned above. But let’s dive a little deeper into this ever-illusive “why” question!

Examples

There are lots of potential impacts that italicizing key words or phrases can have on the nuance of any text, so let’s take a look at a few interesting instances:

• Without italics: I don’t care what you did; I care about what you’re going to do.
• With italics: I don’t care what you did; I care about what you’re going to do.

Here, we can see that the idea of what the person is “going” to do is especially important. Italicizing just this word adds an emphasis of importance in contrast to “what [they] did,” which ties into the thematic purpose of the statement. Sounds like a good use of italics to us!

Let’s look at another instance:

• Without italics: The drug swab of the passenger’s suitcase revealed a positive result for six different banned narcotics.
• With italics: The drug swab of the passenger’s suitcase revealed a positive result for six different banned narcotics.

In this case, the first example looks inherently more formal—that this is important information being reported. The second one, however, seems to highlight the inherent absurdity of someone’s luggage containing traces of half a dozen different illegal drugs. It doesn’t state things that way, but by italicizing the words that relate to this unexpected result, the point is highlighted.

Further Considerations

• Most teachers will tell you not to “overuse” italics, and in general, they’re right. Overusing any technique (like exclamation points!) can make their meaning fade—or worse, seem overdone and inappropriate.
• Less is sometimes more, as mentioned above. So in general, save the italicization of words or phrases for key instances.
• Keep it to just one word or maybe a few. Like we’ve been saying: you want to be careful not to overuse any techniques like these. While there’s no cutoff for how many words you can italicize as part of a phrase, typically the more you do, the less justification you can make for doing so. Again, like with other rules, these conventions vary with genre. I.e., you’re sure to find instances in the real world that italicize full lines. In cases where this seems appropriate based upon relevant samples you’ve seen of similar documentation, go for it!
• But why not just bold my words for emphasis? Or underline them? OR CAPITALIZE??? OR ALL OF THE ABOVE??? Well, the short answer is that, technically, you could. But notice how you seem more and more like a raving lunatic with each added formatting. Again, when in doubt, look to what you see done via other samples within any genre. What might be appropriate to show that you’re frustrated in a private text message is entirely different than showing a contradictory finding in a professional article about a medical topic (the latter example is where you’ll more commonly find italics).
• Read your sentences aloud. We know people don’t like doing this. But if you do so—and do it slowly—you’ll notice where the italics really adds emphasis or further context and meaning.