The Wonderful World of Italics

Italic is the name for that slanted type that you sometimes see amidst regular upright roman type. The name refers to Italy—it literally means “of Italy"—because the type style was invented in Italy back in the 1500s by the famous printer Aldus Manutius. You may not have heard of him, but when you look into the history of typesetting and printing, his name comes up all the time. 

When to use italics

These days, you can open 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, 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 Papers used by many students. All four contain detailed rules on when to use italics. 

The AP Stylebook is easy because the AP doesn't use italics. In AP style, you generally use quotation marks where you’d use italics in other styles. 

But once you get beyond the AP Stylebook, the other style guides are more nuanced, but you’ll be relieved to know that we won’t be just listing all the rules today.

Instead, we’re going to give you a medium-sized list of things you probably should italicize  (and shouldn’t). Just be sure to double-check the style guide you’re supposed to use, because the rules do vary. 

Here goes. You usually italicize 

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