To specify titles of certain creative
works
Such works are: books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets/booklets, plays,
long poems, movies, TV shows, radio shows, musical compositions, choreographic works, works of visual art, comic strips, and software programs. Make sure you italicize the entire title—if there is a question mark in the title itself, then italicize it.
- To specify certain vehicles - Such as ships, aircraft, spacecrafts, and trains.
- To specify foreign words within English text
- To specify scientific names of plants and animals
- To specify words, letters, and numbers used as themselves - To achieve the same effect, one may also place these in quotation marks.
"The purpose of italic typefaces is to aid the reader’s comprehension by separating off certain words and phrases from their surrounding text." - http://www.writingservices.eu/Italics-When-Use-Them.htm
More research from that page:
- The names of ships and aircraft; eg: ‘The Caribbean Cruiser sank yesterday.’ This is the oldest when-to-use-italics rule. It allows the reader to quickly grasp what is being referred to in the message.
- The titles of poems; eg: ‘As You Go Dancing by James Stewart is famous among the literati of the Arabian Gulf.’ This is another very traditional use of italics that enables quick reader-uptake.
- Foreign words; eg: ‘We turned left and found ourselves in a cul de sac.’ Another very traditional use of italics that makes for quicker reading.
- The titles of books, newspapers, articles and stories within a sentence on their own without explanation; eg: ‘The Saturday edition of the Limerick Leader was always on the streets by Friday afternoon.’
However titles that appear within larger works are not italicized but are set off in quotation marks; eg, ‘“An Irishman’s Diary” in the Irish Times is sometimes interesting.’
- Latin phrases used to classify living things; eg: ‘Many people wonder why mankind is referred to ashomo sapiens.’ Another use of italics that has been around ab aeterno.
- Where a word is used as an example rather than for its meaning; eg: ‘The word Kennedy is a proper noun.’ This is neater than setting the noun within single quotes as in: ‘The word ‘Kennedy’ is a proper noun.’
- For introducing new terms; eg: ‘In Freudian psychology reference is made to the ego, the super-ego, and the id.’ This is a neat solution for highlighting words that will probably be explained later.
- For the subjects of definitions; eg: ‘An odd number is any number that cannot be divided by two.’ This is useful for the reader as, should he or she wish to refer back to the definition later, a word in italics among a sea of roman letters is easy to find.
- For mathematical symbols: eg: ‘The standard acceleration of gravity g is 9.81183 metres per second per second.’ The symbol does not need to be surrounded by commas or single quotes which would be required if it were in roman type.
- For emphasis; eg: ‘Janice wasn’t the only girl at the party.’ The use of italics for emphasis is less intrusive than bold and more subtly suggestive.
- To indicate a character's internal reflections in stories; eg: ‘This just does not seem right, Janice thought.’ However many writers prefer other ways of expressing inner thoughts.
- Using a letter or number as a noun; eg: 'He was vexed because they had left out the d in his name.' However many writers would prefer to put a letter or number used in this way between quotes; eg, 'He was vexed because they had left out the ‘d’ in his name.’
In my group I was assigned to do research into the origins of Italics and what its actual purpose is. The research I found was very interesting as it informed me exactly when it is appropriate to use italics and when not to use them. For my double page spread I am thinking of using some vector based diagrams to show how to appropriately use italics but make it informative and interesting.
