Emphasis Added
A parenthetical note telling the reader that italics or bolding in a quotation come from the quoter, not the original author.
'Emphasis added' — sometimes 'italics mine' — is the phrase writers use to disclose that they, and not the original author, are responsible for the emphasis in a quoted passage. It typically appears at the end of the citation, in parentheses: (Arendt 143, emphasis added). Without the disclosure, a reader is entitled to assume that any italics inside quotation marks belong to the source.
The convention exists because emphasis changes meaning. Italicising a single word in a sentence tilts the reader's attention and often the sentence's argument; doing so silently would misrepresent what the source wrote. Scholarly and legal writing therefore treat undisclosed added emphasis as a form of misquotation.
The mirror phrase is 'emphasis in original' or 'emphasis Arendt's', used when the writer wants to make clear that the italics they are reproducing were the source's own. Both notes are small and easy to skip, but they are how a careful quoter tells the reader who is doing the underlining.
Common mistake: silently adding bold or italics to a quotation to strengthen a point. Even if the underlying passage plainly supports the argument, undisclosed emphasis is a citation error, and readers who notice will discount the writer's care with sources more generally.
“'The banality of evil' (Arendt 252, emphasis added).”
Keep reading the glossary
Square brackets mark editorial changes inside a quotation — clarifications, edits, or [sic].
Latin for 'thus' — used in quotes to mark an error reproduced from the original.
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
An in-text source reference given in parentheses, keyed to a fuller entry in the bibliography.