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0hasis techniques whic1h are discussed here. Fundamentals of highlighting:
Consider a few fundamental principles of emphasis:
Practically any special textual effect that is different from regular body text can function as an emphasis technique. Things like italics, bold, underscores, caps, different size type,
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for basic emphasis. For example, if you want to emphasize that readers should not turn off the computer without first shutting it down, the "not" can be bold or italics. Traditionally, italics has been used, but, perhaps because of computers, bold is commonly used as well.
Whichever technique you use, use it consistently throughout your text or library of related texts. By the way, readers are not likely to be able to distin- guish between levels of emphasis: for example, using italics for important text and bold for very important text is likely to be lost on most readers.
If you are tempted to make an entire paragraph bold, remember one of the principle of emphasis discussed above: using too much of an emphasis technique causes the effect of the technique to be lost. Not only that, but too much emphasis makes readers less inclined to read. Instead of carefully reading an all-bold paragraph, readers may just ignore it entirely!
Instead of creating an all-bold paragraph, use the special-notice format. In it, a key word (for example, Important, Note, Danger, Caution, Warning) is bolded, while the rest of the text is
left regular roman (that is, the same font and style as the regular body text).
Legitimate use of bold in technical texts varies widely. As long as you develop a scheme that is directly related to the reader's need and to the characteristics of the text (or technology) and that does not lead to overkill, your use of bold should work fine.
Here are some common, standard uses of bold:
Simple emphasis. As discussed in the preceding, some technical texts use bold for simple emphasis instead of the traditional italics. For example, "Do not turn off the computer before shutting it down."
Commands. Computer texts commonly use bold for commands, for example, "Use the move com- mand to rename UNIX files." See the section on highlighting computer text for a review of the com- plete set of emphasis techniques.
Buttons that initiate commands. In a graphical user interface, some of the buttons initiate commands. For example, "press the Exit button to exit the application."
Field labels. While some computer text bolds field labels, it is not general practice because it leads to highlighting overkill. For example, "In the Inden- tation area of the dialog box, click on Left." More common is to use the cap style used on the screen. It's preferable to write this: "In the Indentation area of the dialog box, click on Left."
Icons or keyboard or mouse buttons. Labels on hardware.
alternate fonts, color,
ingenuities (showing, reverse color, outline fonts) can act as emphasis techniques.
Used in excess, any emphasis technique or combination of emphasis techniques can lose their ability to emphasize and become busy and distracting. Used in excess, any emphasis technique or combination of emphasis tech- niques can cause readers to be reluctant to read a text, if not avoid it altogether.
When extended text must be emphasized, use the special-notice format (rather than creating all-bold or all-caps paragraphs, for example).
A carefully planned functional relationship must exist between the text that is emphasized and the emphasis technique that is used.
Emphasis techniques must be used consistently to prevent readers from becoming confused.
To promote consistency, you must use a style guide or style sheet, which records and then dictates all of your decisions about how you are going to use emphasis techniques.
To help your readers understand your highlighting scheme, you can include a brief section some- where in your document (usually in the preface) explaining how you're going to be using the emphasis techniques.
usage is mixed as to
whether to use bold or italics
Italics:
the various graphical
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Variables. In computer publishing, one of the most common uses of italics is for variables. For example:
copy oldfile newfile
Users know not to type oldfile or newfile but to
substitute their own file names instead.
Definitions in definition (two-column) lists. While bold is more common for the items in the left column of a two-column list, italics is also used.
Terms where the term is defined. A nice touch is to italicize a word where it is defined in regular text.
McMurrey
DOCUMENT-DESIGN TOOLS:
Highlighting and emphasis
Highlighting, as the term is used here, is the use of typographical effects to call attention to text. These effects can include italics, bold, all-caps, quotation marks, color, and so on. Highlighting calls readers' attention—or "cues" them—to actions they must take or to information they must consider carefully.
One of the problems in technical writing—in particular, technical writing about computers—involves the use of the various techniques for emphasis. Unfortunately, some technical texts go overboard on the use of the various emp-
Emphasis techniques:
This next section goes one by one through the various emphasis techniques, explaining the common practices:
Bold:
In publishing, technical publishing in particular,
Here are some of the standard uses for italics:
Simple emphasis. As mentioned earlier, usage is
mixed on whether to use bold or italics for simple
emphasis, although italics has been traditional:
for example, "Do not turn off the computer before
shutting it down." Whichever you use, be consistent with it, and document it in your style guide or style sheet so that everybody on your document team can see it. If you're not sure which to use, use italics for simple emphasis: it's less busy.