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To Italicize or not to Italicize—this is a question I get a lot, and through an author's suggestion, I am finally putting it on my hints page. Correct format dictates (by decree of the "great format gods") that italics NOT be used, and that all italics should be indicated by underlining. At first I didn't see what the big deal was, but now I understand perfectly. If everyone in the world used Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, it probably wouldn't matter, but that's simply not the case. Everyone has different word processors or word processing software and they all yield different fonts. Some fonts have italics that are clear, but sometimes without a second glance you would never know italics were there in the first place! And sometimes the exact opposite happens. You can definitely tell there are italics, but if you asked me what it said, I would have no clue because it's simply unreadable—or at least not worth me killing my eyes to find out. An underline however, is an underline. Could be thick, could be thin, but either way, it's significantly harder to confuse than the italics of various specific fonts. So the ruling is, use a single, simple underline beneath all text you want italicized in the final production. If you don't underline it, I won't kill you, but it's probably a good habit to get into since other magazines might not accept italicized font.

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