Should We Emphasize Words With Bold or Italic?
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
Should We Emphasize Words With Bold or Italic?
Written words afford us the means to express ourselves with precision of thought and intent. When we are writing, we can dedicate greater attention to the words we are choosing, as well as the structure and flow in which we arrange them.
At the same time, written words do not always give us what spoken words can with great facility: inflection, tone, and emphasis.
When we are speaking, our voices can rise and fall for effect. We can whisper, or we can deliver statements with the increasing volume of conviction. Without being able to apply the range of our voice to add weight to or subtract it from words, in writing we adapt by using different type treatments.
During the era of print-based communication—i.e., before the advent and growth of the web—we typically emphasized words by underlining them or using a bold or italic font. These type-based treatments are still often applied in print today.
In the present, underlining words may be more common in academic, research, and government documents. While doing so may still be done online, mainly to indicate hyperlinks, most web-based content will use font weight, type, and size for distinction.
In this discussion, we’ll look at some common contexts in which we might apply bold or italic type for emphasis, particularly online.
Emphasize With Bold
We will often use bold type for our most emphatic points and references in content. Whether such use warrants the extra word weight will be a matter of writer style and intent.
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Only qualified applicants will be considered.
We may also often use bold type to distinguish heads and subheads in both printed and online content. Bold type is more apparent and striking in designating sections.
[HEAD] New England Bird Species
Intro paragraph here.
[SUBHEAD] The Vibrant Blue Jay
Descriptive paragraphs here.
[SUBHEAD] The Tapping Downy Woodpecker
Descriptive paragraphs here.
Bold type might sometimes be useful in lists:
Ocean Fact 1: Covering more than 41 million square miles, the Atlantic is the second-largest body of water on Earth.
Ocean Fact 2: The Atlantic accounts for one-fifth of Earth’s surface and 29% of its water.
Ocean Fact 3: The ancient Greeks named the Atlantic after Atlas from Greek mythology.
As careful, thoughtful writers, we should be sparing with how and where we use bold type. Beyond titles, heads, and subheads, too much bold type in content can make it repellent.
Rainbows are beautiful natural phenomena that occur when light is refracted (or bent) as it passes through water droplets in the atmosphere. The light is then reflected off the inside surface of the droplet, and when it exits, it is refracted again. This bending and reflecting of light cause the light spectrum to spread out into its various colors, which appear in a characteristic arc. From the outside to the inside, a rainbow’s main colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
That type treatment can begin to look like a ransom note. Conversely, bold type used with restraint can make the content far more inviting.
Rainbows are beautiful natural phenomena that occur when light is refracted (or bent) as it passes through water droplets in the atmosphere. The light is then reflected off the inside surface of the droplet, and when it exits, it is refracted again. This bending and reflecting of light cause the light spectrum to spread out into its various colors, which appear in a characteristic arc. From the outside to the inside, a rainbow’s main colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
In some cases we might also use bold type to identify a central statement directing what will follow.
Rainbows are beautiful natural phenomena that occur when light is refracted (or bent) as it passes through water droplets in the atmosphere. The light is then reflected off the inside surface of the droplet, and when it exits, it is refracted again. This bending and reflecting of light cause the light spectrum to spread out into its various colors, which appear in a characteristic arc. From the outside to the inside, a rainbow’s main colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Emphasize With Italic
The original intent of italic type was to capture the look of calligraphy and handwriting in print. Its original designers were both from Italy, which the type style is named after.
In addition to emphasizing certain content, italics are often used in contexts such as titles of standalone works (e.g., movies and books); words being applied from another language (e.g., mañana, Spanish for “morning”); and words of scientific origin (e.g., plants and animal species).
For emphasis, italics are, simply stated, less bold in their accentuation (see what we did there?). If we wish to provide milder emphasis, we will use italics, particularly for words or short phrases.
I saw the movie Titanic on its release date of December 19, 1997.
Did Renaldo get into another argument with the referee?
People are drawn to Chastity because she has a certain je ne sais quoi.
Have you seen the new docuseries about homo sapiens?
Let’s renew our subscription to The Chicago Tribune.
Thad has listened to Led Zeppelin IV more than 500 times.
Still other cases in which we would use italic type include:
Citation of legal cases: The 1803 case Marbury v. Madison gave the U.S. Supreme Court the ability to strike down unconstitutional statutes and laws.
Sarcasm: That plaid tie looks so fashionable with your Italian suit.
Internal dialogue: We have to stay focused and strong, the gladiator reminded himself.
The same principles of restraint apply to italics as they do to bold type (refer to the example paragraphs in the previous section).
Emphasize With Bold or Italic: Some Closing Thoughts
The printed page provides a better palette for using either bold or italic type. Online, many might say that unless italics are stylistically necessary, bold type is more effective for writing and reading something emphasized. Reading on a screen is enabled by light, often on a white page, so italics might not have the same effect as they do on paper.
We also should usually avoid using both bold and italic type in the same sentence or paragraph unless necessary. Similarly, we’ll typically want to forgo emphasizing content with bold italic unless there’s an established stylistic reason to do so.
Related Topics
Italics vs. Quotation Marks
Titles of Books, Plays, Articles, etc.: Underline? Italics? Quotation Marks?
If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.
I literally laughed out loud as I read the word “repellent.” It is certainly not a word I would ever use to describe bold words shouting at me from the page. Nonetheless, you surely made your point!
I frequently use bold AND underlined words when corresponding with members of some groups I belong to, since so many people clearly do not read their email. The words may enter their eyes, but somehow they exit immediately, bypassing all cognitive areas of their brains. Sometimes I even employ caps as well.
As always, your readers appreciate the occasional bonbons you sprinkle through your online articles. Thanks for the smiles.