How to Use Quotation Marks: Rules and Examples

The usage of a pair of marks, opening and closing, at the level of lower case letters was generalized. Until then, literal quotations had been highlighted or not at the author’s discretion. Our copyists place this sign in the books of the people of the Church, to separate or to indicate the quotations drawn from the Holy Scriptures. Anyone in your organization can quickly create documents, presentations, and worksheets within a single, unified app experience. One can skirt these limitations, however, by using the HTML character codes or entities or the other key combinations in the following table.
This usage can be confused with ironic or altered-usage quotation, sometimes with unintended humor. Quotation marks can also set off a nickname embedded in an actual name, or a false or ironic title embedded in an actual title; for example, Nat “King” Cole, Frank “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, or Simone Rizzo “Sam the Plumber” DeCavalcante. Quotation marks, rather than italics, are generally used for the titles of shorter works. A publisher’s or author’s style may take precedence over regional general preferences. When this practice was abandoned, the empty margin remained, leaving the modern form of indented block quotation.
Use commas to introduce or interrupt direct quotations of dialogue or text. Always capitalize the first word in a complete quotation, even midsentence. Periods and commas are placed outside the prime and double prime marks. Scare quotes (also known as sneer quotes) are used to cast doubt on a word or phrase, or to emphasize that the word or phrase is being used as a euphemism. Quotation marks are primarily used to indicate material that is being reproduced word for word, as well as some other important uses.
“The best investments today”, according to Smith, “are commodities and emerging-market stocks”. “The best investments today,” according to Smith, “are commodities and emerging-market stocks.” Find the quotation you need on our sister site funnyQuotation.com. (2) Quotation marks to signify so-called or alleged (4) To show that a word refers to the word itself not the word’s meaning.

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• A convention is the use of square brackets to indicate content between the quotation marks that has been modified from, or was not present in, the original material.
• Direct quotes use the exact words from a source and require quotation marks.
• The symbol used as the left (typographical) quote in English is used as the right quote in Germany and Austria and a “low double comma” „ (not used in English) is used for the left quote.
• By contrast, American English typically uses double quotation marks to identify the outermost text of a primary quotation versus single quotation marks for inner, nested quotations.
• A very short quotation may also be introduced without punctuation.

For more on the proper use of multiple punctuation at the end of a sentence, see here. This is called nesting quotations. (1) Quotation marks to identify previously spoken or written words Some quoted passages are longer than others. But suppose you place the quotation mid-sentence, forming a syntactical part of the sentence.
In American English, punctuation marks are typically placed inside quotation marks, with some exceptions. Quotation marks come in pairs, with an opening quotation mark at the beginning and a closing one at the end of the quote. If you want to discuss a word, phrase, or letter in writing without using its intended meaning, set it apart with quotation marks. Chicago style uses quotation marks for titles of shorter works, such as poems, articles, and chapters, but uses italics for books and periodical titles. AP style uses quotation marks for titles of creative works like books, movies, songs, TV shows, and other compositions. Use quotation marks to represent speech in written text.

To set apart a word to show irony, sarcasm, or skepticism (scare quotes)

Generally, this smart quote feature is enabled by default, and it can be turned off in an “options” or “preferences” dialog. In character encoding terms, these characters are labeled unidirectional. Other languages use an escape character, often the backslash, as in ‘eat \’hot\’ dogs’. It is more common in online writing, although using CSS to create the spacing by kerning is more semantically appropriate in Web typography than inserting extraneous spacing characters. (thin-space)Yes, he did say, “He said, ‘Good morning.’ ” (non-breaking space) (both styles)She said, “Hello, world.” (both styles)”Hello, world!” she exclaimed.
Poland, adopted a variant with the convexity of the closing mark aimed rightward like the opening one, „…”. Some neighboring spinorhino casino regions adopted the German curved marks tradition with lower–upper alignment, while some, e.g. Some authors claim that the reason for this was a practical one, in order to get a character that was clearly distinguishable from apostrophes, commas, and parentheses.

• Straight single and double quotation marks are used in most programming languages to delimit strings or literal characters, collectively known as string literals.
• After the publication of Filelfo’s edition, the quotation marks for literal quotations prevailed.
• If you’re quoting two or more paragraphs, place opening quotation marks at the beginning of each new paragraph.
• Since curved quotes are the typographically correct ones,citation needed word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users (at minimum as available characters).
• When the quoted material flows directly from your introductory text, no punctuation should be used before the quotation.
• They are also sometimes used to emphasise a word or phrase, although this is usually considered incorrect.

Smart quotes

If you’re quoting two or more paragraphs, place opening quotation marks at the beginning of each new paragraph. As with a colon, place a semicolon outside quotation marks regardless of whether it’s before or after a quotation. Place a comma inside the quotation mark if using a reporting clause after the quote. This signals the beginning and end of direct speech or quoted material and helps differentiate it from the surrounding text.

More meanings of quotation mark

By contrast, American English typically uses double quotation marks to identify the outermost text of a primary quotation versus single quotation marks for inner, nested quotations. British English often uses single quotation marks to identify the outermost text of a primary quotation versus double quotation marks for inner, nested quotations. When dealing with direct speech, according to the British style guide Butcher’s Copy-editing, if a quotation is broken by words of the main sentence, and then resumed, the punctuation before the break should follow the closing quote unless it forms part of the quotation. Whether these are single or double depends on the context; however, many styles, especially for poetry, prefer the use of single quotation marks. While American style has periods and commas going inside single and double quotation marks, question marks follow logic.

Examples of Quotation Marks in Sentences

The Chicago Manual of Style suggests 100 words or more as a general rule, but offers many factors other than length to be considered. How do you determine if your quotation is short (allowing it to be incorporated into the main text) or long (requiring a block quotation)? In contrast to the main text, a block quotation might also have a bigger right-hand margin, be in a smaller or otherwise different font, or have reduced line spacing. Style varies, but at a minimum a block quotation should have a bigger left-hand margin than the main text.

In some Baroque and Romantic-period books, they would be repeated at the beginning of every line of a long quotation. Quotation marks were first cut in metal type during the middle of the sixteenth century, and were used copiously by some printers by the seventeenth. They are also sometimes used to emphasise a word or phrase, although this is usually considered incorrect. Quotation marks are often used with technical terms, terms used in an unusual way, or other expressions that vary from standard usage. Is outside the quotation. ” is part of the quotation.
Since the 2000s, the plain quotes have become more common.citation needed The 2013 revision of the SI-1452 standard for Hebrew keyboard, available since 2012 in Windows 8 and in desktop Linux systems, supports both systems, as does the Gboard keyboard for touchscreen devices. In Israel, the traditional practice in printing and handwriting is to use „low-high” quote marks. Since these continuation marks are obsolete in French, there is no support for automatic insertion of continuation guillemets in HTML or CSS, nor in word-processors. With this older style there was also not necessarily any distinction of shape between the opening and closing guillemets; both often pointed to the right (as today’s French closing guillemets do).citation needed A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation. The symbol used as the left (typographical) quote in English is used as the right quote in Germany and Austria and a “low double comma” „ (not used in English) is used for the left quote.
In non-fiction, some British publishers may permit placing punctuation that is not part of the person’s speech inside the quotation marks but prefer that it be placed outside. When quoted text is interrupted, such as with the phrase he said, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark after. Likewise, the typographic opening single quotation mark is sometimes used to represent the ʻokina while either the typographic closing single quotation mark or the neutral single quotation mark may represent the prime symbol.