Nerding out with your formats out
Published on June 19, 2025
This post by Ellane made me think about text formatting and why I like Markdown so much lately.
Mainly, it’s because I don’t really do much formatting at all if I can help it.
Ellane says:
There are two ways to format digital text: let an app do it for you (e.g. select the text, then choose Bold from a menu), or do it yourself.
How about… neither?
My formatting rules
For my own notes, you won’t find a lot of bold, italics, underlining, or other formatting in the text. Here’s how I apply them:
What I use and when
| Format | Use | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| Bold | Rarely | Headlines or emphasis inside block quotes |
| Italics | Rarely | Case citations in legal writing or emphasis inside block quotes |
| Underline | Almost never | Hyperlinks and high-level headlines |
How I use Markdown
So what do I use for text formatting?
- Bullet points. Tons of them.
- Headlines, with multiple levels. See above.
- Tables. See above.
- Blockquotes. See above.
Excess boldface is a sign of AI overuse, just like excess emjois and the overuse of the em dash.
Why would I bother posting this?
You might think this was just an excuse to see how all this Markdown renders in 11ty. You might be right.
And yeah, that table sucks without styling. That’s next on the tweak list.