In these times of turmoil, it becomes more important than ever before to communicate clearly. The rules of punctuation and formatting set by the text world, while they once had their place, have been rendered obsolete by modern day, industrial strength writing techniques.
But this brave new world, like all worlds, needs rules. So, until the fine folks at the MLS get off their asses and recognize these tools, this will have to serve as a formal style guide:
The Internet Posting Style Guide
The *asterisk*: Perhaps the earliest invention in adding emphasis to ASCII text in the absence of italics or boldface, surrounding your words with *asterisks* has now taken on a life of its own. It indicates a certain *poignancy* of the word in question, and implies that a full understanding of the word is *central* to the point being made at the time. *Even whole phrases* can be emphasized with asterisks, if need be.
"Spurious quotation marks": Sometimes you need to point out the "irony" of a certain term. Often used in the classic oxymoronic "military intelligence" sense, but also to put words in people's mouths for a classic straw-man argument. ("Yeah! Let's bomb those fuckers back to the stone age!" Oh, what a good idea!)
bIzaRRe talk: ORIginALLy cReaTEd iN alt.talk.bizarre, tHiS metHOd oF ConVEYinG yoUR LunaCY wAS oNCe cONSidERed a MInoR aRT fORM.
ALL CAPS: I THINK THIS ONE PRETTY MUCH FUCKING SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR POINT TOTALY CLEAR. SO YOU USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. GET IT?
The Capitalized Words: You want to make A Very Important Point. So you pretend Every Single Word in a particular phrase is a Proper Noun, thus Calling Attention To That Phrase.
Make. Each. Word. Its. Own. Sentence: Usually for phrases or short sentences, when you want to give the impression that you're talking slowly and purposefully. This. Statement. Means. Something.
(Now, this would be a good time to bring up something that's appearing both in internet and printed literary circles. The oversized parenthetical statement. Traditionally, parentheses were meant for short phrases, usually tangential points or indirectly relevant information, but slowly they have become what Shakespeare's soliloquies were to the comic aside. They can now span multiple paragraphs, or even whole chapters. I have yet to witness whole books published in parentheses, but feel it's just a matter of time. The main purpose is to place as complex a point as the author chooses within a sort of literary capsule, that can be injected into a larger statement without sounding like the author has lost focus. The same statement outside a parenthesis creates a sense of rambling, but with the clever use of parentheses the work as a whole remains intact.)
The footnote.(1)
The non-underlined _underlined_ word: In the days of pure ASCII, one couldn't underline, but one did have access to the _ character. So placing _ on either side of the word created the _illusion_ that it was _underlined_. Standard abuse and misuse of the convention follow as per traditional underlining.
The horrifying : This makes people . It serves no other purpose.