start your sentence with an i sandwiched between the carrot brackets <>. I did not put the i in there because it would not have shown up, but rather italicized what I just wrote to you. End the sentence with a /i sandwiched between the carrots, followed by a p sandwiched between the carrots for a paragraph break.
If you do not put the carroted p, your next text will be right on the heels of the italicized portion, like this
holy smokes, I did not want my normal text on this text line. I wanted a space after it....