When to Use Italics?

Mastering the art of italics is more than just a grammatical rule: it is a skill that improves the clarity and professionalism of writing! Because English has numerous grammar rules to remember, knowing how to write correctly is a crucial skill to master for students and professionals alike.

That’s why we created this simple guide, which will help you know:

• When to use italics in writing; or even
• When to use italics in an essay.

Let’s take a look at how italics came about and when to use them. With this guide, you’ll soon be an expert in italics!

We see italics in emails, newspaper articles, and books. However, what most people don’t know is that during the Renaissance, this font was primarily used to conserve space on pages.

This new typeface was created in 1501 by Aldus Manutius, a renowned humanist printer based in Venice. With italics, he introduced another style of writing, less solemn, more rounded and refined, which saved on production costs and space on the pages of a book.

It was in the 1530s that the fledgling typography took on its contemporary function. It became the font used to highlight titles, initially for aesthetic reasons. But it was also used to highlight sections of text, presumably for economic reasons.

At that time, legal texts were printed in two colors, red and black. This was a very costly printing process, requiring two passes through the press. They then decided to replace the red sections with italics and thus to compose italics and roman type in the same paragraphs.

The combination of roman and italic in the same paragraph was so successful that by the end of the 16th century, engravers were systematically selling italic characters with roman characters. It was from this period onwards that italics took on the highlighting function we know today.

Most often, italics are used to emphasize or create contrast, that is, to draw attention to a particular part of a text or to highlight the importance of a word within a sentence. This usage is usually the first thing people learn when figuring out when to use italics in writing, and it remains one of the most frequent uses. Here are some examples:

• The Titanic was warned about icebergs seven times before the fatal collision.
• The Battle of New Orleans was fought in January 1815, two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed.
• She expected a brief discussion, but the meeting lasted hours.
• Lemmings have not two, but three types of sex chromosomes.

The first two examples illustrate emphasis, and the last two illustrate contrast. This is the standard way to represent emphasis or contrast, and it answers a common question about when to use italics in an essay: italics should signal importance, not decoration. Generally, you should avoid using quotation marks or other punctuation for decorative purposes; remember, they convey meaning.

If you want to better understand the difference between the use of italics and quotation marks, check out our article: “When to Use Italics or Quotation Marks​?”.

Another use for when to use italics involves the titles of complete works: books, films, magazines, musical compositions, etc.

Examples:

• We watched Casablanca during the film festival.
• Darwin’s On the Origin of Species changed how people understood the natural world.
• The article was published in Nature earlier this year.
• Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony remains one of his most performed works.

It is also worth noting that descriptive labels are not treated as titles. For example:

• Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony is often called the Pathétique Symphony.

Here, “Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony” is a description rather than a formal title, which is why we don’t italicize it. This distinction often comes up when people ask when to use italics in writing for music and classical works.

A third use of italics is to cite foreign words when talking about them.

Examples:

• The Italian word sprezzatura refers to a studied kind of effortless style.
• The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi emphasizes imperfection and impermanence.
• In French, joie de vivre expresses a strong enjoyment of life.

We can also use italics when we employ foreign words and expressions that are not yet considered completely assimilated into English:

• Psychologists are interested in the phenomenon of déjà vu.
• The argument does not align with the Zeitgeist of the period.

If you are unsure when to use italics in writing for foreign words and expressions, consult a good dictionary.

It is also quite common to use italics to quote English words that are being discussed, as an alternative to single quotation marks:

• The word democracy comes from Greek roots.
• There is a clear difference between affect and effect.

This use appears frequently in essays and linguistic discussions, and it’s another case where knowing when to use italics in an essay improves clarity without adding extra punctuation.

Italics also follow strict conventions in certain disciplines and academic fields for specific purposes, which becomes especially important when learning when to use italics in APA (American Psychological Association) style. Here are two of the most common.

In biology, the names of genera and species of living things are written in italics:

• The earliest known member of the genus Homo is H. habilis.
• The cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) is a familiar American bird.

While in law, the names of court cases are italicized:

• Roe v. Wade shaped constitutional law in the United States.

In this context, the abbreviation v. (for versus) is written in roman type, not italics. In American usage, vs. is also acceptable. These conventions are often cited when discussing when to use italics in APA, since legal references must remain visually precise.

If you have a sentence containing an expression that would usually be italicized, and if, for some reason, the entire sentence must be italicized, the expression that would usually be italicized is then written in regular roman type. So, if, for some reason, we have to italicize our last example sentence, the result will look like this:

• Roe v. Wade shaped constitutional law in the United States.

This reversal prevents confusion and maintains the visual distinction, a detail that style guides emphasize when explaining when to use italics in APA and formal academic writing.