When should i use italics in writing

When using the title of a book within a title of an article, most style guides suggest using italics for the title of the book e. If we extend that convention to a museum name, it would suggest italicizing "Lexington" just as you would if you were mentioning the ship elsewhere in the text. However, individual style guides may offer differing advice e.

And as long as you use a consistent style, there's probably room for flexibility here. Georjina Chia. According to your guidelines, it's a building, so it shouldn't be italicized. Hi, Georjina. If you're referring to the "USS Lexington Museum" comment, it is the name of a ship which would conventionally be italicized within the name of a museum, hence the clash of conventions and our explanation. As we say in the previous comment, though, there's room for flexibility here if you're not following a specific style guide.

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More Writing Tips? Read More On Our Blog. Trusted by thousands of leading institutions and businesses. Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing. Let's Get Started. Try for free! He wrote plays such as Antigone and Oedipus the King. Movie and television show titles : We watched Halloween last night, and it terrified us!

Fortunately we followed it up with Brooklyn Nine-Nine to lighten the mood. Album titles : In Utero is my favorite Nirvana album.

An exception to italics exists for citing titles that incorporate other titles. Italicize titles of journalistic media. You should italicize the titles of newspapers, journals, magazines, and radio series. News programs with a specific name should also be italicized. As with the literary examples, italicize these titles on your works cited page or bibliography in Chicago or MLA style and use title case. Italicize without title case for APA style.

Italicize: [3] X Research source Lunsford, Andrea. Newspapers : My mom subscribes to the New York Times. Like nearly everyone else in , I was also hooked on the podcast Serial.

News programs : The Rachel Maddow Show is one of the top-performing news programs on cable news networks. Italicize specific editions of sacred texts, but not the generic names of sacred texts. You should italicize the titles of specific editions of sacred texts, such as the The New American Standard Bible. However, you should not write the names of holy books, such as the Bible, in italics. Names of documents like the Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta are not italicized.

However, some academic styles such as the American Sociological Association ASA recommend that you italicize the titles of specific public documents, but not well-known documents e. Statutes at Large 56 Use italics for foreign words that have not been integrated into the English language.

Words like alumni do not need to be italicized, but words like semper fi do need to be italicized. The difference is that alumni is understood by English speaking people as graduates of a particular university, whereas semper fi requires translation to be understood. A general rule of thumb is that if the foreign word is in an English dictionary, you do not need to italicize it. Italicize names of vehicles.

You should italicize the names of ships, airplanes, missiles, and man-made satellites. Use italics to denote legal cases. When you need to provide the name of a legal case in a paper, italicize the case title including v. You should also italicize the legal case name on your works cited page or bibliography. Wainwright was a landmark in American legal history. Use italics to denote species names, variety, and subspecies names.

The Latin names of species, varieties, and subspecies need to be italicized, but common English names do not need to be italicized. For example: [15] X Research source For example: Homo sapiens is the binomial nomenclature for the human species.

Homo is the Latin genus name, and Homo sapiens is our species name. In scientific writing, it is customary to give the full binomial nomenclature in the title and the first time it is used in the paper. After that, abbreviate like so: H. Know the exceptions. The AP Associated Press style does not use italics in news stories at all, even to refer to titles. This is because italics can be difficult to distinguish on a computer screen. Spielberg won his Oscars for Schindler's List.

An exception: the names of holy books are usually not written in italics. Thus, we write about the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran, with no italics. Don't ask me why. A third use of italics is to cite foreign words when talking about them.

At Basque festivals, a favourite entertainment is the sokamuturra , in which people run in front of a bull which is restricted by ropes controlled by handlers. If you are not sure which foreign words and phrases are usually written in italics, consult a good dictionary. It is also quite common to use italics when citing English words that are being talked about , as an alternative to single quotes: The origin of the word boy is unknown.

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Foundation Partners. Worldwide Recognition. UoPeople in the Media. Contact Us. Like this! Emphasis Want a word or phrase to stand out in a block of text? Titles Of Work The titles of works should be italicized or underlined.

Names Of Trains, Ships, Spaceships Words that are names of transportation vehicles with the exception of cars are italicized. Words As Reproduced Sounds If you want to write out the way something sounds, then you can leverage italics.