When a word or phrase set in italics is followed by a period, comma, semicolon, or colon, most typesetters also set the punctuation mark in italics. However, quotes, exclamation points, question marks, parentheses, and brackets that follow an italic word should be set in normal text face, not in italic. Too many spaces. It is unnecessary and actually disrupts word spacing. A ligature is the joining of two or more characters to form a single character.
Some common ligatures are fi and fl .
Some fonts have 30 or more ligatures which are produced automatically as you type. Some software allows you to turn them on and off. Demand EN dashes. Although we may know when em and en dashes should be used instead of hyphens, many of us don't use the proper keystrokes. Don't type two hyphens to represent an em dash, and even if you think your typeface's em dashes are huge, don't use the smaller en dash instead.