What Is in Italics in APA?
APA style represents written work formatted under standards of the American Psychological Association. This style of formatting is used predominantly to cite and present work written within the social sciences in an academic manner. The use of italics provides emphasis and draws attention to works cited or mentioned in these disciplines. To make your written work compliant to APA standards it is important that you know when to use italics.
Other People Are Reading
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Titles of Books and Periodicals
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Whether you are mentioning the name of book within the text of your work or citing it in your bibliography, the book name will always be italicized in APA format. In one example you could write, “One of the books that Karl Marx is most well known for is ‘The Communist Manifesto' written in 1848." In another example, within the context of a bibliography a book would be noted as, ‘APA: The Easy Way’ by Peggy M. Houghton Ph.D. Magazines and periodicals are italicized within your work, as in the example of mentioning ‘Sports Illustrated’ within this sentence. In these examples, single quotation marks indicate words to be italicized.
Animal and Plant Species
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All plant and animal species are separated and identified in written work in italics. Remember that the genus name is always written first and is capitalized. The specific name is written second and is never capitalized. The class is never placed in italics. For example, in the case of the snapping turtle, the class Reptile would not be italicizd and the genus and specific name 'Chelydra serpentina' is italicized.
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New Terms
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In technical or theoretical writing, you will often have the instance of introducing a technical term or key word. In this case, APA formatting dictates that you should place this term in italics in order to bring attention to it. For example, “In the classroom it is difficult to integrate ‘metacognition’ in order to have students get the most out of group projects." Note the emphasis is within the single quotation marks.
Emphasis
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Adding your own emphasis to the written word is a common use of italics and allowed in APA formatting. Instead of placing something in bold for emphasis, you would add italic emphasis. For example the sentence, ”I want you apply for grad schools and I want you to 'study day and night' for the GRE exam.” There are also situations of emphasis where a word itself suggests a level of emphasis but you want to make it even clearer. If you are stating an extra level of enthusiasm state as, “John was ‘really’ excited to attend the football game.”
As Referred To
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If you are mentioning a phrase within a sentence, you must place it in italics to bring attention to the phrase. For example as in, “He said that what he meant was the same as ‘two birds with one stone.’" In addition if you refer to a letter such as the letter ‘a’ or in the case of focusing on a word within a sentence to bring attention to it as in a focus on the word ‘permanent’ you would italicize them.
Symbols and Variables
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In algebra, you will come across mixed equations with numbers and letters that represent variables. The letters are always italicized. In the case of statistical symbols such as the ‘t' test, the letter that signifies the test should be italicized.
Scale Positions
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If you have created a scale, such as one that denotes levels of satisfaction, then you must italicize those levels. For example, if you are asking respondents to rate their level of happiness on an issue from 1 meaning 'completely unhappy’ to 3 meaning ‘completely happy.’
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References
- Editing Writing Statistics; APA Style: Italics and Underlining; Melissa Simpson
- APA Style Lite for College Papers: Section 3.3 Italics (Emphasis) & Quotation Marks
- Purdue Online Writing Lab: Visual-Textual Devices for Achieving Emphasis
- "APA: The Easy Way; A Quick and Simplified Guide to the APA Writing Style" ; Peggy Houghton, Ph.D. ; 2005
- Photo Credit Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
