Each manager must share this information with their staff by the end of the week.
Each manager must share this information with their staff by the end of the week.
Italics
Most fonts have an italicised form, where the letters slope forward instead of being in a standard upright (roman) position.
Traditionally, writers have used italics to:
- emphasise text within a sentence
- format headings
- highlight words from other languages
- reference a published title, such as a book, journal or statute.
More recently, the trend has moved firmly away from italics for some of these functions, and it will continue to do so for the rest. The reason is simply that italic text is less legible than roman text. It is physically harder to read and more tiring on the eye.
In a print document, italics present problems because the sloping letters appear to run together – especially in longer chunks of content and for readers with conditions such as dyslexia. On screen they are difficult because the square pixels on a monitor do not bitmap a sloping letter as clearly as they do for an upright roman character.
The case against italics is clear cut for in-text emphasis and headings, where bolding provides a ready alternative. Some will feel less comfortable abandoning italics to mark foreign words or publication titles.
The ASG recommends not using italics in most of these cases, but we recognise this change has not gained full acceptance.
Emphasis
Use bold rather than italics to make words stand out
Headings
Prefer font size and bolding to show a visual hierarchy
In a longer text such as a report, you will usually have 2 or more heading levels. As a result, it is important to create a clear visual hierarchy so readers can follow the structure of the text.
It has been common to opt for italics to distinguish lower heading levels, but the ASG recommends using font size, numbering or bold instead. You want your headings so stand out, but not to be hard to read.
Here is an example heading hierarchy for a report.
| Level 1 | 16 point Arial, bolded |
| Level 2 | 14 point Arial, bolded |
| Level 3 | 12 point Arial, bolded |
| Body text | 11 point Arial |
Words from other languages and for specialist uses
Don’t italicise non-English words unless your context makes it essential
ex parte
avant-garde
Canis familiaris
Traditionally, style guides have recommended italicising unfamiliar words or phrases borrowed from languages other than English. For example, you might italicise legal terms of art that come from Latin, such as ‘habeas corpus’.
But this rule can be hard to apply because you have to make a judgement call on what will or won’t be familiar to your reader and when a loan word has assimilated into English. And then there are the problems with italics we’ve already described.
The ASG recommends putting borrowed words in standard roman type. There’s no real need to distinguish them from regular English words.
He launched an ad hominem attack.
Shall we meet on Friday vis-à-vis the latest distribution figures?
That said, italics will persist for some specialist uses.
For example, the scientific community has its own conventions for Latin (or sometimes Greek) scientific names describing plants, animals, bacteria and so on. These call for genus and species names to be italicised. You may need to keep the italics if you’re writing for an audience of scientists, such as in a scientific journal.
The study observed the Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) in the alluvial grasslands of southern Nepal.
Similarly, transport industries and the military conventionally use italics for the names of specific ships, aircraft and other vehicles (but not for types of vehicles), and for military bases.
The ASG sees little justification to continue this convention when the names of other nouns clearly do not need italics. The military may be the most resistant to such change.
References to titles
Opt for title case in roman type instead of sentence case with italics
Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2019–20
Water Act 2007 (Cth)
Pride and Prejudice
The most controversial change in italics is the move to stop using them for published titles.
For more than a decade, the Australian convention in the government sector has been to use sentence case with italics when referring to the titles of formal publications and other creative works.
This was controversial at the time it was introduced, because titles had previously been formatted using title case (it’s in the name!). But the move at the time to reduce capitalisation swept titles along with it, with italics remaining as the means to show formal publication and to distinguish a title from the surrounding text.
- The book Writing at work discusses plain English principles in detail.
- Future options are set out in Pathways to sustainable and productive agriculture
In practice, many writers and editors have struggled with this shift, including the ASG editors. There was often uncertainty over what constitutes a ‘published’ document, and whether texts such as an internal report should take italics. If they do not, then without title case it was often not clear what the title of a document actually was. Many resorted to placing quote marks around a title when it didn’t use italics.
When this difficulty is combined with the general case against italics on legibility grounds, the ASG recommends returning to title case for titles and leaving them in roman type. This partly restores a traditional practice and partly moves formatting forward for the digital age.
It would also provide more consistency, particularly in the government sector. A quick look at the publications sections of government websites shows many using title case and others using sentence case – both with and without italics. But it has become increasingly common for organisations to revert to title case and avoid italics when citing the titles of their publications.
The institute's Business Insights series investigates developing trends in the industry.
The agency operates under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013.
A first edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales may be worth around $10 million today.
The commission has published its Report on entrenched poverty and disadvantage in regional communities.