“I can go to school,” said the boy.
The author of this short remark, clearly intended the “can” in the sentence to have some imparted meaning. But what could it be? It could be a joyous emphasis (“I can go to school,” the boy proudly announced). Or perhaps the announcement was more defiant (“I can go to school,” the boy declared with defiance in his eyes.) Maybe, the bold was intended to be an indication that there was a slow pause in the utterance (The boy considered, hesitated, and then steeled himself in finality. “I can go to school,” he resolved.)
I could go on.
Bold words, Italics, and underlining for emphasis, are not going to necessarily communicate the same thing to the reader that they do for the writer. They are often used as a crutch instead of crafting a more full word picture with other descriptors. In fact, these type ‘enhancers’ were created to serve when there simply wasn’t another alternative, or to denote works of art, titles of books, etc.
Perhaps all writers will someday be obliged to use bold and italics to shape their sentences. However, the printing world doesn’t share that inevitable view.
When we set up the manuscripts for printing we have two options. One option is to use “photo ready” pages. This is where the pages are simply converted to an image, and the image is printed on each page. This allow printers to use the author’s own word processing document (Word, Pages, etc), and preserves the Author’s own use of bold, italics, etc. Many self-publishers seem to use this method, since it is the cheapest and easiest way. However, the sad fact is that when we tested out pages that were printed using “photo-ready” techniques vs using professional formatting, everyone who viewed the proof copies immediately stated they strongly preferred the professional formatted works.
Professionally formatted works nearly universally will remove all the bold and italics from word-processing documents by default. The paragraphs are shaped, margins set, fonts chosen and type-face set. Once this is all completed, the words that are intended to be set apart for special emphasis by bold or italics are selected by hand and adjusted to have their respective emphasis. Certainly, this is allowed, and may even be an invaluable addition to a work. However, each bold word will require time (and cost) to add that emphasis, and will introduce another chance for error in the processing.
So, all things considered, when creating your own manuscript for submission, take a good hard look at all your bold and italic words. Ask yourself whether those are needed to help the reader understand the meaning. Then consider if perhaps adding an adjective or clause would do the same thing, even perhaps more clearly. You will end up with a work that is more polished in the end, and save yourself some considerable cost and hassle with the final printed copy.