![]() It will point out where a foreign phrase appears both with and without italics in your document. Once you’ve finished the main job of writing, PerfectIt will run more than 30 tests on your document, including a test for consistency of italics. With PerfectIt installed on your PC, checking takes just seconds. So think about how much better your document could be with a fast way to check consistency. But that has consequences for consistency. It’s natural to try to minimize the time you spend on the finer points of style in order to focus on the substance of your document. Writing a long proposal, article, contract, dissertation or other document is tough enough. Legal documents with inconsistencies, such as incorrectly formatted case details, may lose business or compromise matters in legal proceedings. A thoroughly polished project proposal, rather than an untidy one, can impress your client. Moreover, enforcing your company’s style consistently in each document and across all your written material, reinforces your brand. If you don’t use italics consistently, your text can become confusing, messy and off-putting. Whichever style you decide to follow, the most important thing is to be consistent.Ĭonsistency matters because it helps the people who are going to read your work. introducing a new or special word or phrase, or defining it for the first time.Īs you can see from the examples above, the use of italics can vary widely.setting quoted material, footnotes and cross-references apart from the main text.drawing attention to a word or to emphasize an idea.journals, magazines, periodicals and newspapers.titles of operas, overtures and ballets.play titles, and stage directions in plays.book titles, film titles and TV programme names.For instance, it’s customary to italicize the following (this isn’t an exhaustive list): Italics are not just for foreign words and phrases. If a cell is blank, the source doesn’t mention whether to italicize the word or phrase, so you can use your discretion. The letter 'Y' shows that the preferred style is to italicize the words the letter 'X' means the style is to use roman rather than italic type. Other guides are more specific and state precisely which words and phrases to italicize (or which dictionary to follow for guidance).įigure 1: Preferences for italics vary by phrase and by style manualīelow is a table showing a sample of foreign words and phrases and whether they are italicized in three different styles. Some style guides include general advice about italicizing foreign words and phrases, for example, to use italics only for the less common foreign words. Those style guides offer advice about the preferred style of writing as well as finer details such as which style to use for headings and how to set out quotations. Many publishers, government departments, newspapers, companies and other organizations have style guides for their employees and marketing teams to follow. How Style Guides Help to Decide If You Should Use Italics PerfectIt, for example, does this right from Word and has a 14-day free trial. There are tools that can monitor your consistency of italicization and much more right from MS Word. So what’s the basis for deciding when – and when not – to italicize a foreign word? Automate How You Check for Italicization Right From Microsoft Word And if italic is used in some instances in a document, that word or phrase might not be italicized on every occasion in the same publication, and it might not be italicized at all in other publications. ![]() Not every word or phrase that has its origins in other languages is italicized. However, the use of italics for foreign words and phrases varies. You might have noticed that documents in English use italics if, for example, any French, German or Latin words appear. ![]() One of the common uses of italic type is for words and phrases that are in a foreign language. It’s easy to press the italics button in Microsoft Word, but have you ever wondered if you’re using italics correctly? How to Decide If You Should Italicize Foreign Words and Phrases
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