rules from the submitting and formatting book

bkwriter said:

I was flipping through how to format your novel and it says to underline anything that needs to be italicized. So my question is do I leave the word italicized and just underline it Like so or is it Like so?

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You either underline it or italicize it. One or the other, not both. Underlining used to be the standard but my understanding is that italicizing is acceptable now.

The underlining was so that typesetters could easily see what text was to be in italics.

I underline in the stuff I send to my agent, and use regular italics for my e-pub stuff.

It's when it gets to the typesetter that it matters, and that depends upon how they are doing it. I used italics for EQUINE LIABILITY (legal cases are italicized) and boy, did I make a mistake. Talk to your editor just before you do. And the technological changes since EQUINE LIABILITY came out (2002) and now may have made the issue less of a problem.

For agents and editors, I doubt that it matters much.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

If you use Courier or Courier New, I would underline, as it is hard to differentiate courier italics from Arabic. If you use Time New Roman The Italics are easy to see, and look better than underlined text, if you're submitting to an agent.
When the time comes to submit to a publisher - ask.

Typesetters, like editors, are trained to see proofreaders' marks, and underlining is a proofreaders' mark.

And if you submit and have to edit a paper manuscript during the publishing process, you will, unless you underline, usually have both in a finsihed manuscript, simply because the editor may want something in italics that you missed, or you may want something in italics that you missed or add, and the only way the editor can italicize something is by underlining it with his trusty red pencil.