Italics serve three primary functions: they emphasize key words or phrases, identify uncommon foreign words, and indicate certain titles and names. While italics work well to place greater weight on certain words, too many writers italicize too much, likely thinking that anything of importance needs to be clearly indicated. But the result does not match the intention—readers treat all the italicized text as equal and will be left without a sense of what is important and what isn’t. Trust the reader to see importance in good writing and emphasize key points through emphatic and rhythmic placement rather than physical modifications.
Italicize uncommon foreign words and consult your favorite dictionary when uncertain which words deserves italics and which don’t. Dictionaries seem to increasingly lean toward removing italics—Latin, German, and many French terms remain unaltered in the more recent editions of major dictionaries.
For titles and proper names, italicize the following:
•Books, plays, epic poems
•Newspapers, magazines, journals, websites
•Court cases
•Films, television shows, video games
•Musicals, operas, song cycles, symphonies, albums, radio shows
•Paintings and sculpture
•Scientific names
•Ship, train, aircraft, and spacecraft names
Do not italicize traditional games like chess or Texas Hold ‘em, software, legal and constitutional documents, websites (which may take quotation marks, depending on the style guide), and consumer products. For rules on quotations, see quotes.