Library of Formatting Examples:Italics/14A

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"Not at all," said the Vicar; "not at all.
Only----. Naturally it may be inconvenient if
you tell a too incredible story. If I might suggest
(<i>ahem</i>)----."

Parentheses

Parentheses are containers. Their contents may be in italics or boldface, but the containers are not, and they go outside the markups. (You don't actually drink a can of soda: you drink the soda that's in the can.)

Exception: when any kind of punctuation, including parentheses, is in the middle of something that's meant to be entirely in italics (or boldface, etc.), the punctuation should remain within the overall markups. If the preceding sentence had been in italics, the parentheses would be italicized along with the rest.