Are Quotation Marks Acceptable?

A site visitor writes:

Is it acceptable to emphasize a point in an email with quotes? For example: The people on the Board are "elected" not appointed.

Anything you can do to ensure your intent and the meaning of your comments come through as intended is O.K.

That said, I don't think the above is a good example of emphasis instead I would take that as more along the lines of elected but insinuating how they were elected may be at question with a bit of sarcasm. Is that what you intended? If that's the case the above use is fine.

Nuances of perception with the written word in plain text can be tricky. Sarcasm should be avoided if possible as it is subjective and open to interpretation by the other side. What I do for emphasis is use forward slashes, for example:

It is not that I care, it is that I care /too much/.