Bold, italics, and overemphasis

A co-worker asked me to make some changes to a section of the website today. Part of the changes included some paragraphs with sentences that were in bold and italics. Why do people do this? Why is it when someone wants to emphasize something, they over-emphasize it?

If you want to emphasize something, start by italicizing it.

Suppose we have the following copy paragraph:

Kim has to go to Vancouver at the end of June for some training in ColdFusion. He will be gone five days, which will be the longest he has ever been away from the rest of the family.

Now suppose we want to emphasis to the reader how this trip will be the longest time Kim would be away from his family. In this case, we’d format it as follows:

Kim has to go to Vancouver at the end of June for some training in ColdFusion. He will be gone five days, which will be the longest he has ever been away from the rest of the family.

This tells the user what part of the sentence that’s not only the most important to the writer but also the part the writer wants to emphasize to the reader.

Consider the following:

Kim has to go to Vancouver at the end of June for some training in ColdFusion. He will be gone five days, which will be the longest he has ever been away from the rest of the family.

Notice the same word is italicized as before; it’s still important. We also we have some words in bold. These aren’t just any random words, however; they have a relationship to the italicized word. They qualify just how long “longest” is. In other words, despite the different levels of emphasis, the emphasis is still logical.

Watch what happens when we present emphasis as my co-worker asked me to do.

Kim has to go to Vancouver at the end of June for some training in ColdFusion. He will be gone five days, which will be the longest he has ever been away from the rest of the family.

The logic of the emphasis is completely lost and the whole point of using emphasis is muted. There’s no indication whether the writer is emphasizing being away from his family, the length he’ll be away, or the act of being away.

When using emphasis, please make sure that it’s logical and that it makes sense. Remember, using too much emphasis will have the opposite effect.