{"id":2061,"date":"2014-01-14T08:05:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T08:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:51:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:21:52","slug":"latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not","title":{"rendered":"Should you italicize Latin phrases like in vitro, in vivo, etc.?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">Scientific writing often uses a few Latin phrases, either abbreviated (etc. for et cetera and et al. for et alii) or spelt out (in vitro, in vivo, in situ). Should they be set in italics? As is common with such queries, there is no single right or wrong answer, although, increasingly, the trend is to dispense with italics.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Should Latin phrases be italicized in scientific writing?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">Most publishers and style guides instruct authors not to use italics for such phrases. Both Springer and Elsevier, for example, insist on setting &#8220;in vitro,&#8221; &#8220;in vivo,&#8221; and &#8220;in situ&#8221; in normal, or Roman, font, and so does the Chicago Manual of Style and Scientific Style and Format. <\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">The Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors, however, insists that in vivo and in vitro should be set in italics.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">The only sensible advice in this matter is, therefore, to follow your target journal\u2019s practice. And if the target journal doesn&#8217;t specify this in their author guidelines, you can look at a few recently published articles and follow their style.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">Another issue many authors are unclear about is\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/using-et-al-for-in-text-citations-in-research-papers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Using &#8220;et al.&#8221; in research papers for in-text references<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientific writing often uses a few Latin phrases, either abbreviated (etc. for et cetera and et al. for et alii) or spelt out (in vitro, in vivo, in situ). Should they be set in italics? As is common with such queries, there is no single right or wrong answer, although, increasingly, the trend is to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":45136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2427],"tags":[2643,501],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-style-format","tag-formatting-tips","tag-non-native-english-authors"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Latin phrases in scientific writing: italics or not | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Should you italicize Latin phrases - abbreviated (etc. and et al.) or spelt out (in vitro, in vivo, in situ), in scientific writing?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Latin phrases in scientific writing: italics or not | Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Should you italicize Latin phrases - abbreviated (etc. for et cetera and et al. for et alii) or spelt out (in vitro, in vivo, in situ), in scientific writing?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-14T08:05:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-10T03:21:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Final_A-paragraph-of-a-medical-research-paper-with-the-words-_et-al._-magnified-and-italicized-2-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"984\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"721\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Yateendra Joshi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Yateendra Joshi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Yateendra Joshi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/person\/cddcdcb60c05f8fe00b1e54c1ebf7980\"},\"headline\":\"Should you italicize Latin phrases like in vitro, in vivo, etc.?\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-14T08:05:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-10T03:21:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\"},\"wordCount\":205,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Final_A-paragraph-of-a-medical-research-paper-with-the-words-_et-al._-magnified-and-italicized-2-1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Formatting Tips\",\"non-native English authors\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Style &amp; Format\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not\",\"name\":\"Latin phrases in scientific writing: italics or not | Editage Insights\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/latin-phrases-in-scientific-writing-italics-or-not#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Final_A-paragraph-of-a-medical-research-paper-with-the-words-_et-al._-magnified-and-italicized-2-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-14T08:05:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-10T03:21:52+00:00\",\"description\":\"Should you italicize Latin phrases - 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