On these boards, I usually do a 'Quick Reply', which doesn't have the option of the italics
Actually, this is posted as a "Quick Reply", and it
does have italics. There's a clue if you look to the left when posting: it says "UBBCode is enabled". The UBBCode for italics is an 'i' in square brackets: [i ]
like this[/i ], but without the spaces.
and I'm too lazy to highlight and copy everything, then go back to a reply to the particular person, paste the original in, and then italicize certain parts.
There's a button to "Switch to Full Reply Screen", which may help. It will preserve what you've written so far.