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

DO

1. Give the class attribute a value indicating the nature of the data (i.e. class="footnote" is good)

2. Create a CSS style sheet for the page

3. Define a CSS style that is attached to the class that you assign to the element

   .footnote { font-style:italic; }

DO NOT

1. Don't use or elements - they're unsupported and ties the data and presentation too close.
2. Don't give the class a value that indicates the presentation rules (i.e. don't use class="italic").