In the middle of writing my first interracial plus size romance Me, My Curves, and I; I read a sample of Waiting to Exhale by Terri McMillan, which was written three years before being adapted into a movie and noticed the song title having quotation marks and italics like, "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson. At first, I thought, why is the song title in italics with quotation marks? I search on Google to discover that writers put the quotation marks and type the artist's song title to prevent copyright infringement. Authors do not own the songs, except for the writers, the record company, and the producers.
Not only do you use the italics to express emphasis, but you could also apply italics on titles of artwork, magazines/newspapers, websites, television shows/movies, speeches, plays, radio stations, musical pieces, books, and poems. You do not have to italicize the titles of book of the Bible, Tanakh, or Qur'an as well as italicizing prayers, religious events/services, or sacred objects.
Artwork:
Cinema: Black Panther, Love Simon, Night School
Book: Fifty Shades of Grey, Everything Everything, To Kill a Mockingbird
Famous Speeches: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream
Journals and Magazines: Time, Us Weekly, People, Ebony, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Vanity Fair, New York Times, Newsday
Plays: Rent, Dreamgirls, Fences
Television: Martin, Love & Hip Hop, Empire, TV One's Unsung
Musical pieces: Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite (but "Waltz of the Flowers")
Here is the link for you to read the full info of using italics and quotation marks;
https://blogs.millersville.edu/bduncan/italics-quotation-marks-underscore/
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Writing Tips
Non-FictionA guide for readers turning writers to learn from grammar, punctuation, body languages, character development, copyrighting, vocabulary, and overcoming a writer's obstacle; writer's block. Also, this story will help an author to remind them that the...
