Bold
What is bold?
Bold is a heavy kind of writing. The characters are thicker than normal, as you see here:
This sentence is in normal type.
This sentence is in bold type.
The noun is "bold". The adjective is "bold". So we can also call bold "bold type".
When to use bold
We use bold for emphasis, when we want to make sure that our reader sees and takes in certain words. The main examples are:
- Keywords, for example in a dictionary, where each headword is usually in bold. In the text about presentations below, there are three keywords in bold:
We will start by exploring the importance of preparation. After that, we will consider what equipment to use. Then we will look at successful delivery of a presentation.
- Headings and sub-headings, for example in an essay or book. In the website example below, the heading "English Parts of Speech" is in bold:
- Newspaper headlines. In the example below, from The Times newspaper, the headline "Lehman collapse sends shockwave round world" is in bold. Note too that the name of the newspaper itself ("The Times") is also in bold, as is the sub-heading "Shares and oil prices plunge, thousands lose jobs":
- Book covers, music album covers, advertisements, film posters and similar items, for example:
It is better not to write entire paragraphs in bold. It is not easy to read a lot of words all together in bold (like this paragraph). So if you want readers to read your writing, better reserve bold for a few important words and phrases only.
Bold is not really possible in handwriting, but we can show emphasis with underlining ( ).