Thanks to computers, we can now italicize with a keystroke. But that doesn’t solve this dilemma: When to italicize words and when to use quotation marks?

Is it “Harry Potter” or Harry Potter? “Sixty Minutes”or Sixty Minutes? “Madame Butterfly” or Madame Butterfly?

Let’s face it. Sometimes you just have to memorize the rules. If memorization isn’t your forte (and yes, we still say “fort,” but dink around on the Internet: the two-syllable “for-tay” is on the rise and no longer considered incorrect), we suggest consulting your favorite grammar book. Might we suggest our Nitty-Gritty Grammar  or More Nitty-Gritty Grammar. (True confession: We both keep these grammar guides handy, especially for rules surrounding today’s topic.)

One friend, now a retired middle school English teacher, used this trick to help her students. She told them to think about this in terms of big pieces or little pieces. Big = italics. Small = quotation marks.

Check out these specifics:

Italics

First, some of the easier-to-remember uses of italics. Use italics:

• for scientific names: Tyrannosaurus rex

• for emphasis: “The will, as only Maxwell knew, made him the sole heir to their parents’ fortune.”

• for screen play directions, to show how a character should speak a line: Kermit (innocently): “It’s not that easy being green”

• for words from other languages: bon ami, piéce de la resistance, c’est magnifique, mea culpa, c’est fini, feng shui, E pluribus unum, Hasta mañana, baby!

Tip: Some foreign words (shish kebab, en masse, cafe latte, and maven) have been used so often that they are no longer italicized.

More Italics Tips

Titles

Titles are trickier. Use italics when writing these titles:

Magazines: Vanity Fair

Journals:  The California Reader

Newspapers:  The New York Times

Books: Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)

Long poems:  Evangeline (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Movies:  The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

Plays:  Two Pianos, Four Hands  (Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt)

Radio shows/Series    Downton Abbey

TV shows/series :  The Big Bang Theory

Cartoon strips:  Zits (Jef Mallet)

Cartoon shows: Cyberchase

Musical works:  1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky)

Artistic works:  Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci)

CDs and DVDs:  Red (Taylor Swift)

Names of ships:  Grand Princess, Air Force One

Spacecraft: Curiosity

QUOTATION MARKS

Quotation marks (“  ”) aren’t just for enclosing spoken words (more on that in a future column). Use quotation marks for titles such as these, and don’t let the combination of quotation marks and italics throw you:

Short poems:    “On the Pulse of Morning” (Maya Angelou)

Songs:    “Bring Him Home” (Les Miserables)

Stories:   “Three Billy Goats Gruff”

Short stories:  “Teaching Luther to Cook”

(Mama Makes Up Her Mind, Bailey White)

Articles:     “FDA Probing Energy Drink Deaths”

(Los Angeles Times)

Chapters of books:  “The House of Fear”

(Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson)

Short musical compositions: “Adagio for Strings” (Samuel Barber)

Individual radio/TV show episodes: “The Portwen Effect” (Doc Martin)

• To set off individual words or phrases.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth was the Sultan of Swat.

Tip: Ruth’s nickname is in quotes, but his title as Sultan of Swat is capitalized and not in quotation marks.

• To enclose direct quotations and dialogue.

Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” begins “Twas brillig and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe . . .”

There you have it. We hope we’ve refreshed some of the rules on this sometimes confusing topic. We’d love to know if you have a cool mnemonic for remembering all of this. Send it and we’ll share . . .

For more on quotation marks, watch for a future column on the “Inside-Outside Rules.”

À bientôt from the Grammar Patrol!

 Please Share

There you have it. We hope we’ve refreshed some of the rules on this sometimes confusing topic. We’d love to know if you have a cool mnemonic for remembering all of this. Just post below.