One of the simplest ways to create emphasis is to use an italic. Even though italics are generally intended for titles, foreign words, technical terms and the like, they can also be subtle emphasizers. Using the italic form of a typeface creates a distinct, yet harmonious departure in text copy. Show Use italics to emphasize words, phrases or short sentences in text copy. Because their designs are usually cursive (as opposed to simply obliqued or slanted), the italic counterpart of serifed typefaces stand out a little more in a block of copy than sans serif italics. One or two words in italic stand out without interrupting the reading process. A sentence set in italic beings to be more of a distraction than emphasis; and a paragraph becomes downright difficult to slog through. Visual-Textual Devices for Achieving Emphasis Welcome to the Purdue OWLThis page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use. Summary: This handout provides information on visual and textual devices for adding emphasis to your writing including textual formatting, punctuation, sentence structure, and the arrangement of words. In the days before computerized word processing and desktop publishing, the publishing process began with a manuscript and/or a typescript that was sent to a print shop where it would be prepared for publication and printed. In order to show emphasis—to highlight the title of a book, to refer to a word itself as a word, or to indicate a foreign word or phrase—the writer would use underlining in the typescript, which would signal the typesetter at the print shop to use italic font for those words. Even today, perhaps the simplest way to call attention to an otherwise unemphatic word or phrase is to underline or italicize it. Flaherty is the new committee chair, not Buckley. This mission is extremely important for our future: we must not fail! Because writers using computers today have access to a wide variety of fonts and textual effects, they are no longer limited to underlining to show emphasis. Still, especially for academic writing, italics or underlining is the preferred way to emphasize words or phrases when necessary. Writers usually choose one or the other method and use it consistently throughout an individual essay. In the final, published version of an article or book, italics are usually used. Writers in academic discourses and students learning to write academic papers are expected to express emphasis primarily through words themselves; overuse of various emphatic devices like changes of font face and size, boldface, all-capitals, and so on in the text of an essay creates the impression of a writer relying on flashy effects instead of clear and precise writing to make a point. Boldface is also used, especially outside of academia, to show emphasis as well as to highlight items in a list, as in the following examples. The picture that television commercials portray of the American home is far from realistic. The following three topics will be covered:
Some writers use ALL-CAPITAL letters for emphasis, but they are usually unnecessary and can cause writing to appear cluttered and loud. In email correspondence, the use of all-caps throughout a message can create the unintended impression of shouting and is therefore discouraged.
8 Typography EmphasisA web page of solid body text is hard to scan for content structure and will not engage the eye. Adding display type to a document will provide landmarks to direct the reader through your content. Display type establishes an information structure and adds visual variety to draw the reader into your material. The key to effective display type is the careful and economic use of typographic emphasis. There are time-honored typographical devices for adding emphasis to a block of text, but be sure to use them sparingly. If you make everything bold, then nothing will stand out and you will appear to be shouting at your readers. A good rule of thumb when working with type is to add emphasis using one parameter at a time. If you want to draw attention to the section heads in your document, don’t set them large, bold, and all uppercase. If you want them to be larger, increase their size by one measure. If you prefer bold, leave the heads the same size as your body text and make them bold. You will soon discover that only a small variation is required to establish visual contrast. ItalicsItalicized text attracts the eye because it contrasts in shape from body text. Use italics for convention—for example, when listing book or magazine titles—or within text for stressed or foreign words and phrases. Avoid setting large blocks of text in italics because the readability of italicized text, particularly at screen resolutions, is much lower than in comparably sized roman (“plain”) text. BoldBoldface text gives emphasis because it contrasts in weight from the body text. Section subheads work well set in bold. Boldface text is readable on-screen, though large blocks of text set in bold lack contrast and therefore lose effectiveness. UnderliningUnderlined text is a carryover from the days of the typewriter, when such options as italics and boldface were unavailable. In addition to its aesthetic shortcomings (too heavy, interferes with letter shapes), underlining has a special functional meaning in web documents. Most readers have their browser preferences set to underline links. This default browser setting ensures that people with monochromatic monitors or people who are color-blind can identify links within text blocks. If you include underlined text on your web page, it will certainly be confused with a hypertext link. ColorAlthough the use of color is another option for differentiating type, colored text, like underlining, has a special functional meaning in web documents. You should avoid putting colored text within text blocks because readers will assume that the colored text is a hypertext link and click on it. Colored text does work well as a subtle means to distinguish section heads, however. Choose dark shades of color that contrast with the page background, and avoid using colors close to the default web link colors of blue and violet. Bear in mind that some users cannot distinguish colors. To emphasize text—for example, in headings or key phrases within text—so that it won’t be overlooked, use bold formatting as well as color. Also be sure that there is sufficient contrast between the background and text on your page. Although contrast is particularly important for vision-impaired users, all users will benefit from greater readability. CapitalsCapitalized text is one of the most common and least effective methods for adding typographical emphasis. Whether you choose capital or lowercase letters has a strong effect on the legibility of your text. Indeed, words set in all capitals should generally be avoided—except perhaps for short headings—because they are hard to scan. We read primarily by recognizing the overall shape of words, not by parsing each letter and then assembling a recognizable word. Words formed with capital letters are monotonous rectangles that offer few distinctive shapes to catch the eye (fig. 8.11). Figure 8.11 — We read by quickly assessing the shapes of familiar words. All-caps text makes monotonous word shapes that must be read slowly, letter-by-letter. We recommend down-style typing (capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns) for your headlines, subheads, and text. Down style is more legible because as we read we primarily scan the tops of words (fig 8.12a). Notice how much harder it is to read the bottom half of the same sentence (fig. 8.12b). If you use initial capital letters in your headlines, you disrupt the reader’s scanning of the word forms (fig. 8.12c). Figure 8.12 — The tops of words (a) are much more important to legibility than the bottoms (b). Initial caps disrupt and slow the scanning process (c). To read a block of text set in all capital letters we must read the text letter by letter, which is uncomfortable and significantly slows reading. As you read the following paragraph, notice how tiring the process is: THE DESIGN OF THE SITE WILL DETERMINE THE ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK OF YOUR WEB SITE. AT THIS STAGE YOU WILL MAKE THE ESSENTIAL DECISIONS ABOUT WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANTS FROM YOU, WHAT YOU WISH TO SAY, AND HOW TO ARRANGE THE CONTENT TO BEST MEET YOUR AUDIENCE’S NEEDS. ALTHOUGH PEOPLE WILL INSTANTLY NOTICE THE GRAPHIC DESIGN OF YOUR WEB PAGES, THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SITE WILL HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT ON THEIR EXPERIENCE. Spacing and indentationOne of the most effective and subtle ways to vary the visual contrast and relative importance of a piece of text is to isolate it or treat it differently from the surrounding text. If you want your major headings to stand out more without making them larger, add space before the heading to separate it from any previous copy. Indentation is another effective means of distinguishing bulleted lists, quotations, or example text (such as the capitalization example, above). You can define margins and indents using css. Semantic emphasisAlways consider the semantic meaning of any visual styles you apply to your words. Using Cascading Style Sheets you can
style the semantic emphasis (
Table 8.1 — The semantic elements of HTML markup.
What is the best way to emphasize in a text?So there you have it: If you really need to emphasize something in your text, use italics or bold. And remember, if everything is emphasized, then nothing is emphasized.
How can you emphasize the important text in your report?Emphasis, as the term is used here, is the use of typographical effects to call attention to text. These effects can include italics, bold, all-caps, quotation marks, colour, and so on.
What is the best way to emphasize?7 Ways You Can Emphasize an Important Point During Your Presentation. Be Blatant. ... . Repeat Yourself. ... . Whisper. ... . Slow Your Pace. ... . Engage Your Audience with Eye Contact. ... . Assume the Power Stance. ... . Make Your Point the Moral of a Story.. |
