Expressing Emphasis

When we talk, we create urgency, drama, compassion, suspense, and all sorts of other forms of emphasis by the way we use our voices, hand gestures, facial signals, etc. We can create the same emphasis when we write even without the use of these visual or audial tools.

We create emphasis in writing by the way we use punctuation, capitalization and font. We use these tools like you use spices when you cook – know what works best to add flavor and zip, but don’t overuse them or your writing will go down the garbage drain along with the pot of soup that has too much salt.

Ways We Express Emphasis in Writing

1. The Look of the Words
Italics
Underlining
CAPITOL LETTERS
Larger font
Smaller font
A different font
A different color
Indentations

Spaces between lines

Centering

Boxing off

Highlighting

2. Punctuation
“Quotation marks”
Colons:
Exclamation marks!
A series of periods…
Commas,
(parenthesis)
[brackets]