CSS/HTML: What is the correct way to make text italic?

Question

What is the correct way to make text italic? I have seen the following four approaches:

Italic Text

I         


        

Answer 1

I think the answer is to use when you intend emphasis.

If when reading the text to yourself, you find that you use a slightly different voice to emphasise a point, then it should use because you would want a screen reader to do the same thing.

If it is purely a style thing, such as your designer has decided that all your

headings would look better in italic Garamond, then there is no semantic reason to include it in the HTML and you should just alter the CSS for the appropriate elements.

I can't see any reason to use , unless you specifically need to support some legacy browser with no CSS.