and seals they all became, and laughing took a coat of dappled light

[frith_in_thorns]

[Poll #1826114]

This question dedicated to everyone who has seen my fic notebook and proceeded to kill themselves laughing at the ink html. You know who you are XD *narrow eyes*

Also, I want to know what other people do! 

Comments

[djaddict.livejournal.com]

I write italics in cursive.

[frith_in_thorns]

That didn't occur to me as an option - all my handwriting is cursive. It's interesting seeing the different things people do :)

[shehasathree]

My normal handwriting is also cursive, so I denote italics by writing in normal, non-italic font (printing?).

[frith_in_thorns]

I was taught from Primary school that cursive was the "correct" hand -- we were only allowed to use pencil until our cursive was good enough, and then we were allowed to use fountain pens. Secondary was the same -- it was actually incredibly surprising to get to sixth form and find that most schools were much less strict and didn't do this XD

[shehasathree]

Me too!

[djaddict.livejournal.com]

lol

My handwriting is a mix really but for italics I do 'straight' cursive

[spriggina.livejournal.com]

I underline, mostly out of habit from longhand writing binominal names in biology classes.

[frith_in_thorns]

I'm afraid that in my finals I'm going to use html tags around Latin names and the examiners will be baffled :P

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I almost always underline to denote italics, but I have also written out HTML tags in the past.

[frith_in_thorns]

helle_d spends about five minutes laughing at me every time she sees my notebook, it's very upsetting!! I used to underline, actually, but then found the tags looked neater.

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

I am disgusted that there are two of you in there world who write html in ink. Disgusted, I say. :P
(I don't know why I find it so hilarious, but I genuinely do...)

That said, I don't have any consistent stragey myelf for italicising, so I am coming to think that you might have a point... I generally use /strikes/ like this, or underline or use asterisks, or write on a slant, depending on my impulse at that moment.

[leesa_perrie]

I usually type direct to the computer *tries to think when she last had to write italics longhand* Um, not sure, but I think I underline them.

[frith_in_thorns]

Strangely, I just can't write fic to the keyboard at all, I just can't get the flow - it's this weird mental block. A bit annoying, because it's slower then, but on the other hand I do most of my editing as I type up, so it works out :)

[soteriophobe.livejournal.com]

I write [i] tags! And [b] tags! And occasionally I am an idiot and write [u] tags. It's just habit now, after nearly a decade on LJ. XD

[frith_in_thorns]

I love finding other people to validate me on this :D It just makes it so much easier to get the formatting right! (And I write [u] tags for emphasis within italics, it took me a minute here to realise quite how unnecessary that is XD)

[imbecamiel.livejournal.com]

LOL! Manually adding tags tends to be reflex for me when I'm typing, but not when I'm actually writing things in a notebook. XD

I've got rather terrible handwriting, so attempting to write in italics wouldn't be a particularly dependable way of indicating it for me. And since I don't much like all caps as a way of emphasizing things (Not that I never use it casually, but I think it can easily become too much and distracting in either fiction or nonfiction formal writing. Too reminiscent of people WHO SHOUT ALL THE TIME FOR NO REASON on forums and in e-mails. Sets the wrong tone. :P), I don't tend to do it much in notebooks either. Asterisks, while useful in some places online, require too many strokes to be really helpful when writing with pen/pencil.

So yeah. That is my ridiculously long-winded way of saying that I tend to use the way that's quickest and breaks my flow of thought the least: underlining. ^^

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

What is this "longhand" you speak of?

More seriously, back when I did write longhand — which was probably the early 90s at the latest — I underlined for italics.

[chaosultima.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I really wrote enough out longhand to the point that italics were necessary.

But, if I can get away with it I'll try doing the slanty thing. If the rest isn't neat enough to make it seem feasible or I can't be bothered, I do what I often do when typing and use hyphens on either side of the thing I want to emphasise like -this-.