[DNSB]

Jon, I think the problem is that the ePub he is editing used only <i> or <em> and they now need to use <i> for visual, <em> for emphasis and <cite> for citations, all of which render as italic by default.

I've done that dance a couple of times and it required a good chunk of manual effort since there other than some of the citations where I could do some automation, it required the mark one eyeball to distinguish which was needed. The actual typing of <em> or <cite> was not the issue as that was done using the clip bar.