Effective Text Formatting
One of the best parts about writing on a computer is how easy it is to format your text, whether it be italicizing, underlining, or bolding your words. Because of the ease of digital writing, we no longer have to worry about things like attempting to underline the name of a book and it becoming more of a strikethrough. If you want to bold a specific word, you no longer have to trace over it multiple times or write it out with a different pen; instead, you can just use a shortcut like command+B.
But how do you effectively use bolding, italicizing, and underlining for your text?
Oftentimes, if you double up on your usage of text formatting, it starts to feel excessive and distracting to your readers. Therefore, using one kind of formatting at a time is what we advise. If you are writing the name of a book, simply italicize it; you don't need to also underline it. It begins to feel redundant.
If you are placing a longer quote in the body of your text, just create a new paragraph or put it into the quote format (as indicated by the single " in the toolbar). It will look much cleaner than also bolding the whole quote, as that tends to dominate the reader's eyes and amplify more words than is necessary.
Major works like books, movies, or TV shows can simply be italicized. Underlining creates more lines and, due to the cleanliness of type as opposed to handwriting, readers will notice your italics and understand that it is a title.
In short, less is more. Choose one type of text formatting—the best for what you're writing—and stick with that. It's not only easier for your readers to digest, but it will also take you less time to streamline and complete!
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