Indicating emphasis
The em
and strong
elements are used for indicating
emphasis and even stronger emphasis, as demonstrated in this
example.
<p>We<em>
really</em>
need to leave<strong>
right now</strong>
!</p>
Although emphasized text renders reliably in italics, it is not
always an appropriate substitute for the i
element. For example, if you want to
italicize the title of a book, the cite
element is the better choice. If there
is no good match, create your own meaningful element using a generic
span
element and apply italics with
the font-style
style property. To
use another example, it is a convention to display words from another
language in italics, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those
words are emphasized.
A good rule of thumb is to consider how your document would
sound if it were read aloud (as it might be). Do you want the italic
words to be read louder or at a different pitch from the rest of the
sentence? If the answer is no, then it is probably best to find an
alternative to em
. The same logic
applies to the strong
element.
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