
To address this problem, you must document your highlighting guidelines in a style guide that writers and editors (or just you) can refer to. You'll notice that there are many equally valid ways of using emphasis techniques: for example, in some cases, it's arbitrary whether you use bold or italics for simple emphasis. In the following discussion, you'll notice that any system of emphasis techniques can get quite complicated and hard to remember for writers and editors.

Emphasis techniques must be used consistently to prevent readers from becoming confused.A carefully planned functional relationship must exist between the text that is emphasized and the emphasis technique that is used.When extended text must be emphasized, use the special-notice format (rather than creating all-bold or all-caps paragraphs, for example).Highlighting cues readers when they are to press something, enter something verbatim, or pay special attention to something. Notice how unreadable the overly highlighted version of the notice is in this popup Used in excess, any emphasis technique or combination of emphasis techniques can cause readers to be reluctant to read a text, if not avoid it altogether. Used in excess, any emphasis technique or combination of emphasis techniques can lose their ability to emphasize and become busy and distracting.Things like italics, bold, underscores, caps, different size type, alternate fonts, color, the various graphical ingenuities (showing, reverse color, outline fonts) can act as emphasis techniques.

