When we encounter quotation marks or italics in a text, we generally have to make a decision about the reason they've been used before we can mark them up. These are the most common tags, and what they're used for:
<emph>
: Used for simple emphasis, as with the word reason above. These usually render into italics.<mentioned>
: Used when a word is mentioned rather than used -- in other words, the word itself is the topic, rather than being used to refer to something. The word reason in this sentence is an example (and in the bullet above).<soCalled>
: Used for "scare quotes", or situations in which the author is maintaining an ironic distance from the word or phrase. The phrase scare quotes above is an example of this: I've put it in quotes, suggesting that it's somehow not a formal term, or is only semi-serious. Renders into quotes.<term>
: Used for technical terms which are highlighted in some way (usually italics, but sometimes quotes). Renders into italics.<hi rend="foreign">
: Used for a word or phrase taken from another language which has been italicized for that reason in the original. Ceteris paribus this will be rendered into italics. Note that there is also a<foreign>
tag, but this is used only when font changes are required (for instance when including Japanese or Greek text which requires a specific font).<hi rend="italic">
: Used when all else fails (i.e. you have no idea why the italics are there, but you need to render them.
These tags are distinct from ordinary quotations, of course, which are dealt with in another post. Also, note that inside quotations, we may find it difficult or undesirable to speculate about why the quoted source uses italics or quotation marks, so we may simply leave the original quotation marks, or use <hi rend="italic">
, to avoid making a choice. In the case of the text of our own authors, we should always be able to tell why such highlighting is used, and if we can't, we can ask, or the editor may decide it should be removed.