Italics/Underlining and Quotation Marks Writing Lab Italics/Underlining and Quotation Marks

Italics/Underlining If you’re using a computer or keyboard that has an italics font, use italics. Otherwise, use underlining. In general, underline the titles of works. Titles to be underlined include the names of movies, books, plays, long poems published as books, compact discs, audiocassettes, record albums, ballets, television and radio programs, and operas.

Quotation Marks Use quotation marks for the titles of works published within larger works. Such titles include the names of articles, essays, short stories, short poems, chapters of books, individual episodes of television and radio programs, and songs.

Italics/Underlining and Quotation Marks Italics and underlining is used to identify certain titles, such as books, movies, plays, newspapers, magazines, paintings, sculptures, and aircrafts. Tom Hanks starred in a number of movies including Big, The Terminal, and The Da Vinci Code. Italics and underlining is also used to identify foreign words or phrases that have not become fully anglicized/naturalized. Consult a dictionary if in doubt. Paule Marshall’s novel Brown Girl, Brownstones is a bildungsroman.

Italics/Underlining and Quotation Marks cont. When you include both a word and its definition in a sentence, italicize the word being defined and place its definition in quotation marks. Aesthetic is different from the word ecstatic which means “thrilled” or “elated”; aesthetic means “artistically beautiful.” Underline or italicize words used as words and not as grammatical units. Although you is the second person plural pronoun, some Southerners insist on saying “y’all.” The phrase a lot of is commonly used—and misspelled—in writing.

That’s all, folks! This lesson is part of the UWF Writing Lab Grammar Mini-Lesson Series Lessons adapted from Real Good Grammar, Too by Mamie Webb Hixon To find out more, visit the Writing Lab’s website where you can take a self-scoring quiz corresponding to this lesson