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How To Use Italics

By Bonnie Mills

Following the Rules

Open up any style guide and it’ll give you a list of items that need to be italicized. The important thing to remember is that if your school or business follows a certain style guide, you should follow it too. The four main style guides that you may be asked to follow are the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, used by journalists; the Chicago Manual of Style, used by many publishers; and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papersused by many students. All four contain detailed rules on when to use italics. The AP Stylebook is easy: the AP doesn’t use italics. The rest are a little more nuanced, but you’ll be relieved to know that we won’t be listing all the rules here in the podcast.

Instead, we’re going to give you a medium-sized list of things you probably should italicize. Just be sure to double-check the style guide you’re supposed to use, as rules vary. Here goes: foreign words not yet assimilated into English—more on that later; legal citations; letters of the alphabet when you’re referring to them as letters; scientific names; titles of works, including books, plays, short stories, very long poems, newspapers, and magazines; titles of movies and radio and television series; names of operas and long musical compositions; and names of paintings and sculptures (1). You might also be asked to italicize the names of famous speeches, the titles of pamphlets, the names of vehicles (such as Challenger), and words used as words (2).

Did you memorize all those rules yet? Just kidding. You’re probably not going to be able to remember all the times you’re supposed to use italics, so keep your style guide handy.

Although grammatical texts haven’t caught up with modern technologies like blogs and podcasts and don’t specifically mention these as far as italics, it would probably be safe to use italics to refer to them. That’s what we do on the Grammar Girl website. Alternatively, though, you could probably also use quotation marks to refer to a blog or podcast name. See More . . . 

 

 

 

How To Use The Colon

Mignon Fogarty,
Today’s topic is how to use colons. One of my favorite old grammar books, titled “Punctuate It Right,” has a wonderful name for the colon: the author calls it the mark of expectation or addition. That’s because the colon signals that what comes next is directly related to the previous sentence. Often, it’s almost a definition of what came before.

Use Colons After Complete Sentences

Style guides differ significantly, however, when it comes to colons, so the most important thing is to know what style guide you should be following and what rules it recommends. The two main rules that differ are whether you can use a colon after a sentence fragment and whether you capitalize the first word after a colon.

If you don’t follow a specific style guide, you can pick the rules that you like best. Just be sure to use them consistently. Making your own personal style sheet is one way to make it easier to be consistent in the future. If you like a style, write it down.

APA Style: Complete Sentences and Capitalization

I’ll start with the style I like best, which is APA style: the style of the American Psychological Association.

1) In APA style, you use a colon only after a complete introductory clause. In other words, after only something that could stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Squiggly has one dream: becoming a chocolatier. (correct in APA style)

Squiggly bought: chocolate chips, butter, and a spatula. (incorrect in APA style)

2) In APA style, you capitalize the first word after a colon if it’s the start of at least one complete sentence (or of course, if it’s a proper noun).

Squiggly has one dream: He dreams of becoming a chocolatier. (correct in APA style)

Squiggly has one dream: he dreams of becoming a chocolatier. (incorrect in APA style)

So in APA style, you can use a colon only after a complete sentence, and you capitalize the first word after a colon when it’s the start of a complete sentence.  See More . . .

 

 

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/colons

Punctuation in Dialogue

December 8, 2010 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill
last modified April 18, 2016

Dialogue hpunctuation graphicas its own rules for punctuation. Commas go in particular places, as do terminal marks such as periods and question marks.

Only what is spoken is within the quotation marks. Other parts of the same sentence—dialogue tags and action or thought—go outside the quotation marks.

Dialogue begins with a capitalized word, no matter where in the sentence it begins. (Interrupted dialogue, when it resumes, is not capped.)

Only direct dialogue requires quotation marks. Direct dialogue is someone speaking. Indirect dialogue is a report that someone spoke. The word that is implied in the example of indirect dialogue.

Direct: “She was a bore,” he said.

Indirect: He said [that] she was a bore.

Here are some of the rules, with examples.

Single line of dialogue, no dialogue tag
The entire sentence, including the period (or question mark or exclamation point) is within the quotation marks.

“He loved you.”

See More . . .