How Do You Exhibit Emphasis If You Have To Do While Writing?

[akshay.p]

I'll be appearing for written theory exams throughout the year now and although I do have a legible hand, I want to do display some emphasis while writing beyond just using 'quotes' & underlines; like by italicizing, or writing in bold (by moving the pen a bit slower).

 

Has anybody here done that? Is this even normal to begin with!?

[Pickwick]

At the moment I can think of but two, use of an exclamation mark, the other, sentence structure. I'll be very interested to see what others come up with.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Pickwick

[nekosan]

I just stick to underlines. *apologetic shrug*

[Vendome]

The use of a double exclamation mark to emphasise a particular point to the reader.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

Interesting question

 

Most often I add emphasis by underlining, usually using the nib inverted to give a thin dry line.

 

My 'next step' is to switch from my usual [jumbled] hand to character-wise mixed case printing. After that its all uppercase, which is rarely used.

 

If I've used formulae or other notation where underlining / printing may not be useful, I circle anything to be emphasised.

 

For proofing, error correction, etc. I may use other ink colours. Highlighters are useful, but not often invited to the party.

 

Bye,

S1

[mirosc]

word underlined

word (!) with exclamation mark

capitalized WORD

a word written in bigger letters

usually I write with an italic or flexible nib and so I can write the word a bit bolder

spreading the w o r d more than usual

[Joe in Seattle]

Underline more than once

[Inkysloth]

Depending on the recipient, I may put an asterisk either end of the word. I wouldn't do this in formal writing though.

[GabrielleDuVent]

I capitalise them, but the height is the same as the lowercase cursive. So it would look like THIS.

 

I also underline at times, but that's not quite as often.

 

Sometimes, if it's a quote or something similar, I'd use a different colour.

[Vendome]

Also, use N.B. nota bene - note well, to emphasise a point.

(Note bloody well, as my English teacher used to say.)

[mboschm]

If I'm taking notes, I write ALL CAPS, underline, exclamation marks (or interrobangs), sometimes I'll draw a pair of glasses making the eyes and the nose make the word "ojo", meaning in spanish literally "eye" but used in the sense "pay attention".

[Sasha Royale]

I print in upper case block letters. I, also underline. Am I the only one who carries a highlighter in my pocket ? How about a 20X loupe ? Come on. Anyone else neurotic ? Show of hands !

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Good question. I was asking myself the same. In the end:

 

I capitalise them, but the height is the same as the lowercase cursive.

Yep -- that's what I decided on too. I doubt it's correct, but it serves the purpose of marking out the chosen word(s) as being significant. I suppose one could also use non-cursive for emphasis within cursive, and vice versa. Or Chancery versus <whatever non-chancery is called>. And so on.

 

I do recall from some documents about the computer typesetting system TeX (and LaTeX), that the the canonical way to emphasize a word in the middle of a "normal" block of text is to italicize. If the block of text is already in italics, then emphasis is achieved by *un*-italicizing. That was for printed matter -- i.e. professionally typeset or, in this case, typeset by a computer. And that was contrasted with how emphasis was achieved in *typed* matter, where the orthodox method is the underline. But I don't know about handwriting.

 

Aside, and just FYI: the whole point of LaTeX was that the decision as to *how* to emphasize, as opposed to the decision as to *when* to emphasize, is a job for the document's typesetter and not for the document's author (or at least, while those two people can be one and the same, the tasks are different). A crucial point is that typesetting is important and that it benefits from skilled practitioners. It is to the detriment of ... well the whole world basically ... that an entire generation has grown up with Microsoft Word whereby anyone can, willy nilly, use color, font, shape, weight, size, flashing-on-and-offness, and so on[1] to try to achieve what a skilled typesetter would have done, in the past, with subtle grace and care.

 

Sorry, got carried away there. Rant over. :-)

 

 

 

[1] And sometimes all at once!

[Randal6393]

Two pens, filled with the same ink, one a size larger than the other works well for me. If I switch from an italic medium to an italic bold, the emphasis is obvious. Sometimes, a change in ink color also works.

 

Enjoy,

 

PS: Love Microsoft Word BECAUSE it is so easy to use variable emphasis.

[cellmatrix]

with a flex pen, pressing down harder will give you something akin to a 'bold' emphasis effect

[akshay.p]

Most often I add emphasis by underlining, usually using the nib inverted to give a thin dry line.

 

 

Yes, I do write inverted with a bold/medium nib and use it straight for emphasis. But for long articles, I hate the idea of not using the pen the way it was designed to. Yea! that's silly!

 

word underlined

word (!) with exclamation mark

capitalized WORD

a word written in bigger letters

usually I write with an italic or flexible nib and so I can write the word a bit bolder

spreading the w o r d more than usual

 

Thanks! I doubt if exclamation would look good on a formal paper.

 

I capitalise them, but the height is the same as the lowercase cursive. So it would look like THIS.

 

Yeah, it's just better.

 

Two pens, filled with the same ink, one a size larger than the other works well for me. If I switch from an italic medium to an italic bold, the emphasis is obvious. Sometimes, a change in ink color also works.

 

PS: Love Microsoft Word BECAUSE it is so easy to use variable emphasis.

Switching the pens would take time, but I guess it's worth the effort. I do have a 1mm stub, but just hope it doesn't look pretentious.

You should try latex!

 

 

Thanks a ton for your replies. I'll try posting a few samples!

[The Good Captain]

I usually underline - the number of times, depends on how strongly I want to emphasise something.

[cybaea]

 

Switching the pens would take time, but I guess it's worth the effort. I do have a 1mm stub, but just hope it doesn't look pretentious.

 

You just need one of these:

 

http://edisonpen.com/userfiles/image/DEPearl3.jpg

 

[Daniel Penman]

Whenever I must italicise something, I simply switch from cursive to print, or vice versa.

[beak]

This is an interesting matter, to me at least. For what it's worth, I take the following path;

 

In handwriting, the emphasis I wish to give reflects the emphasis my voice would give were I speaking the same words. It has long been the convention that underlining in a manuscript indicates that the text is meant to be printed in italics - the equivalent of reported speech (some may disagree with that derivation). Thus underlining equals an emphasis of tone (in speech) which equals that emphasis on the page.

 

I'm not a fan of capitals or of emboldened text, simply because, to me, it looks as though one is shouting. Opinions will vary.