HTML - Emphasize value

[yuppicide]

Hello,

I am displaying a list of statistics where each statistic has a value
and a phrase:

8 articles published

I want to emphasize the number 8 by giving it a bigger size and making
its weight bold.

How should my HTML markup be?
<ul>
<li><span>8</span> articles published</li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>

ul li {
font: normal 0.75em Georgia, Utopia, Palatino, 'Palatino
Linotype', serif;
padding: 4px 0;
}

ul li span {
font: bold 1.5em Georgia, Utopia, Palatino, 'Palatino
Linotype', serif;
}

or maybe:

<ul>
<li><p><span>8</span> articles published</p></li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>

ul li {padding: 4px 0;

ul li p {
font: normal 0.75em Georgia, Utopia, Palatino, 'Palatino
Linotype', serif;
}

ul li p span {
font: bold 1.5em Georgia, Utopia, Palatino, 'Palatino
Linotype', serif;
}

Or maybe some other option?

Thanks,

[Mecurtis]

Why the extra P? Do you feel compelled to add an extra element or are
your really listing paragraphs!

[Pageous]

Is there HTML markup for emphasis?
The <span> markup is by definition meaningless, semantically empty. Read the
group for a while and you'll learn about this.
Why do you set the font size 25% smaller than the user-selected size?

Here's adequate markup:

<ul class="stats">
<li><strong>8</strong> articles published</li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>

Alternatively, you could use <em> instead of <strong>, but this sounds more
like strong and global emphasis rather than the within-text emphasis that <em> "really" means. Either way you need to pay attention to typical default
rendering when designing your style sheet, which could be e.g.

.stats li {
font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', serif;
padding: 0.25em;
}
.stats strong {
font-size: 1.5em;
font-weight: bold;
}

Here font-weight: bold just confirms the typical default rendering.

By typographic tradition, bolding is normally use with sans-serif fonts, whereas italics and small-caps are normal emphasis methods for serif text.
We need not take this too seriously in web authoring (partly because small-caps isn't really supported and italics is often too unnoticeable on screen), but I think everyone should know the tradition and then _consciously_ deviate from it when appropriate.

Don't forget the possibility of coloring text or background for emphasis.
The cost nothing on the web, unlike in print.

[yuppicide]

Thank you for the explanation.

I am using Georgia because I wanted its looks on this case and 1em
looks to big for the purpose of displaying a text line with
statistical info.

Should I use Georgia only for heading?

Thanks,