The Em template makes it faster and easier to apply the <em>...</em>emphasisHTML element to text, and more importantly to indicate to human editors and OODA WIKI bots they should not use ''...'' or <i>...</i> typographic italicization to replace the intentional and semantically meaningful<em>. Emphasis (<em>...</em>) is usually rendered visually in an italic (oblique a.k.a. slanted) typeface by default on graphical browsers, but can be parsed and acted upon in customizable ways with style sheets, apps, and text-to-speech screen readers. It is semantic markup, i.e. markup that conveys meaning or context, not just visual appearance.
Simple italicizing (''...'' or <i>...</i>) is purely typographic and is semantically meaningless; however, there are some occasions when simple italics are preferable to the emphasis template, most often for titles of publications (books, films, albums, etc.), foreign words and phrases, words as words (when quotation marks are not used for that purpose), names of ships, scientific names of genera and below and other cases where stylistic conventions demand italics, but they convey no sense of emphasis.
The average reader, and average editor, do not and need not care about this distinction most of the time, but it can be important and editors who understand it can use this template as a baseline insurance against accidental or uninformed replacement by bots and human editors, as well as to add web accessibility.
Usage
{{em|text to be emphasized}}
or, if the text to be emphasized contains an equals sign:
{{em|1=text to be emphasized}}
These both render as:
text to be emphasized
This template puts intentional and explicit <em>...</em> (emphasis) [X]HTML markup around the text provided as the first parameter. It is safest to always use the |1=.
Optional parameters
Advanced HTML values can be passed through the template to the HTML code:
|role= takes a WAI-ARIA role; adds role="rolename" to the HTML code
|class= takes a class name (or multiple class names, separated by spaces); adds class="classname[s]" to the HTML code
|style= takes inline CSS input; adds style="CSS directive[s]" to the HTML code
|id= takes a valid, unique HTML id (must begin with an alphabetic letter); adds id="name" to the HTML code
|title= takes text, which cannot be marked up in any way, and displays it as a pop-up "tooltip" (in most browsers) when the cursor hovers over the span
This template is made to mildly emphasize an important word or phrase in a passage, in a way that is (unlike simply italicizing it) semantically meaningful markup. With this technique, the emphasized text stands out from the rest of the nearby text in most if not all visual browsers and some text-to-speech screen readers (which usually ignore purely typographic italicization), without strongly affecting scannability. It can also be parsed by user agents and other software as definitively indicating emphasis, not just some typographic italicized effect for appearance's sake. Therefore, it only should be used sparingly in articles to highlight something being stressed (e.g., to represent mild vocal emphasis). Example:
"Contrary to reports, she was {{em|not}} dead after all." "Contrary to reports, she was not dead after all."
It is also occasionally used for disambiguation, e.g. between two adjacent but different uses of the same word or homonym ("What it is is a kind of custard."), but this usage is not often encyclopedic and can (when not found in a direct quotation) usually be rewritten to avoid the awkward construction.
When this template should not be used
Because {{em}} is strictly for semantic (meaningful) emphasis, it should not be used for layout, typography conventions (titles, foreign words, scientific names of genera and species, etc.), and other cases that are not true emphasis. In these different cases, italics Wikicode ''...'', which is rendered as <i>...</i> for the browser or other user agent, should be used instead, or special markup for a particular case, such as {{var|...}} or <var>...</var> for variables in computer science and mathematics. {{Em}} should also not be used when the text to which it is applied is italicized for some other reason (e.g., it is part of a book title); in such cases use {{Strong}} instead. Usually avoid using {{em}} in non-quoted sentences that end in an exclamation point. And it is usually excessive to use {{em}} on terms that are Wikilinked, since the link markup acts as a form of emphasis itself.
"The New York Times is an American daily newspaper." This example should use ''The New York Times''.
TemplateData
This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template in articles based on this TemplateData.
TemplateData for Em
Formats text with the HTML emphasis (<em></em>) element. Do not use for layout, typography conventions (titles, foreign words, scientific names of genera and species, etc.), and other cases that are not true semantic (meaningful) emphasis; use normal ''italics'' formatting instead.
Template parameters
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter
Description
Type
Status
Text
1
The text to format.
Content
required
WAI-ARIA role
role
The WAI-ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) role that the text plays. Adds the "role" attribute with the provided value to the HTML code.
Suggested values
mathpresentationnonenote
String
optional
HTML class(es)
class
Name(s) of the class(es), separated by spaces, to be added to the HTML "class" attribute.
String
optional
CSS formatting markup
style
CSS directives for formatting the text. Added to the HTML "style" attribute.
String
optional
HTML unique identifier
id
A unique HTML identifier, which must start with an alphabetic letter. Added to the "id" attribute.
String
optional
Tooltip text
title
Explanatory text of the pop-up tooltip to be displayed on hover. Added to the HTML "title" attribute.
String
optional
See also
{{Strong}} – for bold rather than italic semantic emphasis
To indicate text is a variable name. Use for any variable names except those including "I" (uppercase i) and/or "l" (lowercase L); for these, {{var serif}} should be used to ensure a noticeable distinction
To display parameters as used in code (i.e. with triple braces), especially to indicate relationships between them. May be combined with {{para}} above
To display parameter values lightly bordered; replaces <code>...</code>, especially when value contains embedded or leading/trailing blanks; visualized here with middot (·) but can use ␠, ▯, or any character.
To showcase with colors in horizontal format the syntax of any template, while providing an easy way to display placeholder texts using colons as separators
To indicate text is source code. To nest other templates within {{code}}, use <code>...</code>. {{codett}} differs only in styling: someMethod becomes someMethod
This template, often abbreviated as {{}}, is used to provide stylized formatting to template displays without actually using the template itself. The code generated will be displayed inline. For a multi-line output, see {{tj}}.
Parameters
With the exception of alttext, the named parameters are toggles that are either omitted (default in most cases) or activated (by being assigned a value such as "on", "yes", "true", "include", etc.). They may be included in any order (see Examples below). Certain templates have the parameter "on" by default; see the main table for all alternate options.
This template, often abbreviated as {{}}, is used to provide stylized formatting to template displays without actually using the template itself. The code generated will be displayed inline. For a multi-line output, see {{tj}}.
Parameters
With the exception of alttext, the named parameters are toggles that are either omitted (default in most cases) or activated (by being assigned a value such as "on", "yes", "true", "include", etc.). They may be included in any order (see Examples below). Certain templates have the parameter "on" by default; see the main table for all alternate options.
( or {{dc}}) To indicate deprecated source code in template documentation, articles on HTML specs, etc. The {{dc2}} variant uses strike-through (<blink>) while {{dcr}} uses red (<blink>).
To showcase with colors and multiple lines (vertical format) the syntax of any template, while providing an easy way to display placeholder texts using colons as separators
