OECD Style Guide (Fourth Edition)

8. Italics, roman and bold type

Abstract

Different kinds and weight of typeface help readers to understand the function of a word or phrase or their importance.

General rules

• Use the styles in O.N.E Author to organise your information and to format your titles and headings. Do not apply bold, italics or underlining to create a hierarchy of information.

Italic type

• Reserve its use for specific elements that need emphasis or differentiation.

• Use sparingly to ensure readability on screen and in print and to preserve its utility for emphasis.

Do

✔ Italicise titles of reports, books, journals, newspapers, magazines, databases, and working and policy paper series names. Do not put quotation marks around italicised titles (OECD Employment Outlook 2025; Moby Dick; The Economist).

✔ Italicise words or phrases from other languages that are not yet naturalised in English.

The nation’s policy of autarky stifled international trade opportunities.

✔ Use italics for technical terms or variables upon first mention.

The variable X represents economic output.

✔ Write Latin abbreviations in italics, except for those listed in the table “Latin terms and abbreviations to put in roman type”.

Don’t

✘ Overuse italics for emphasis. Excessive use sounds informal, hinders readability and reduces its value for emphasis.

✘ Italicise common words or terms from other languages that are widely understood in English (per capita, laissez‑faire, modus operandi).

✘ Italicise titles of sections, chapters, or articles within a publication, or paper titles. Use roman type with double quotation marks instead.

✘ Italicise URLs.

Roman type

• Roman type is the default style for the body text and is used for most elements in OECD publications.

Do

✔ Use roman type for titles of sections, chapters, articles, papers, policy briefs, country notes, case studies and documents, enclosing them in double quotation marks.

Chapter 4 is titled “Sustainable growth strategies in Europe”.

✔ Use roman type for the titles of programmes, legislation, codes and declarations, names of organisations, and proper nouns; do not use italics or bold. Capitalise as appropriate.

The OECD and the ADB collaborated on the project.

The Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 parties.

✔ Default to roman type for foreign terms that are commonly used in English.

The results are calculated per capita.

Don’t

✘ Use roman type for titles of reports, books and periodicals.

✘ Use roman type for words or phrases from other languages that are not yet naturalised in English.

Latin terms and abbreviations to put in roman type

 

ad hoc	ibid.	op.	versus (vs.)
cf.	id., idem	op. cit.	via
circa	i.e.	per capita	vice versa
e.g.	loc. cit.	per annum
et al.	nota bene (NB)	p.s.

See also: Abbreviations, acronyms and signs.

Using italic and roman type together

• Pay attention to how you mix italic and roman type together, to ensure clarity and consistency.

Do

✔ Note that when the body of a text is in italics, items that normally would be italicised become roman.

Literacy and numeracy skills among adults have largely declined or stagnated over the past decade, according to the second OECD Survey of Adult Skills, published this week.

✔ Switch back to roman type for punctuation immediately following italicised words unless the punctuation is part of the italicised phrase.

The report How’s Life in the Digital Age? has assembled 33 indicators of key impacts of the digital transformation.

Have you read the latest edition of the OECD Pensions Outlook?

Bold

• Bold is reserved for signalling emphasis.

Do

✔ Use very sparingly, only if essential for meaning. Bold can be considered aggressive looking if overused.

Don’t

✘ Apply bold as a formatting choice to indicate hierarchy. Use the style settings available in O.N.E Author instead.

Underlining

• Underlining gives an informal and unprofessional look to your text.

• It can also be mistaken for a hyperlink.

Don’t

✘ Use underlining, unless it appears automatically as part of a URL.