EICCD - grammar - Underlining

The temptation to underline for emphasis in writing is often too strong. Rather than underlining, try rewriting. Emphasis in sentences is achieved by good word choice and by good arrangement of words. Underlining is weak and artificial.

Weak: Ralph fantasized that it was he who made the winning basket and won the heart of the cheerleader.

Improved: Ralph fantasized himself, Ralph Nivens, driving through the offense, leaping to the rim to dump the winning basket and capture the heart of the sweet, blonde cheerleader.

By adding, subtracting, or rearranging words, you can emphasize without underlining.

I don't understand why these things happen to me.

Improved:Why me? Why do these things always happen to me?

Emphasis can be created by repetition, by unusual word order, by using active rather than passive voice, and by, at times, extreme brevity. Underlining for emphasis is a copout.

Of course, there are words that must be underlined, but they are special cases. They include:

1. foreign words: ex post facto

2. cave canem

titles of books:         On the Road
magazines:               Newsweek
newspapers:            Muscatine Journal
plays:                       The Tempest
movies:                    Godzilla Meets the Blob
operas:                    Madame Butterfly
long poems:             Paradise Lost
paintings:                 Mona Lisa

(Titles of magazine articles, songs, short poems, and short stories are put in quotes: "MacArthur Park," "Thanksgiving," "The Battler.")

names of trains: Wabash Cannonball
planes: Spitfire
ships: Andrea Doria

Words or letters or numbers that are being used in a special way in the sentence:
example:

1. What does the word ambiguous mean?

2. Does that word have two c's?

3. There are four 7's in my phone number.

Remember, if you have the urge to underline words that don't ordinarily call for underlining, reread your sentence and see if there is some way to rearrange it more effectively for emphasis.

Underlining

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