Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively for quoting dialogues rather than for single statements, and is virtually always the one used for that purpose in works of fiction. In Polish printed books and publications, this dictionary-recommended style for guillemets (also known as »German quotes«) is used almost exclusively. Guillemet marks pointing outwards are used for definitions (mainly in scientific publications and dictionaries), as well as for enclosing spoken lines and indirect speech, especially in poetic texts. But the most frequent convention used in printed books for nested quotations is to style them in italics.
- If you want to discuss a word, phrase, or letter in writing without using its intended meaning, set it apart with quotation marks.
- Though marshaling little evidence, the authors claim that “over half of British prisoners come from single-parent households.”
- Because typewriter and computer keyboards lack keys to directly enter typographic quotation marks, much of typed writing has neutral quotation marks.
- The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same glyph.
- Whether these are single or double depends on the context; however, many styles, especially for poetry, prefer the use of single quotation marks.
- Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside quotation marks.
Period
- Periods and commas that are part of the person’s speech are permitted inside the quotation marks regardless of whether the material is fiction.
- 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 quotation dash is also used, and is predominant in belletristic literature.
- When corner brackets are being used for quotations, quote-within-quote segments are marked with white corner brackets.
- Anyone in your organization can quickly create documents, presentations, and worksheets within a single, unified app experience.
Using quotation marks to indicate height is informal yet widely accepted. If you write a person’s nickname alongside their given spinorhino casino name, set it apart with quotation marks so the reader knows it’s not part of their formal name. Depending on the styling format, some writers alternatively use italics without quotation marks.
With regard to quotation marks adjacent to periods and commas, there are two styles of punctuation in widespread use. Despite being semantically different, the typographic closing single quotation mark and the typographic apostrophe have the same visual appearance and code point (U+2019), as do the neutral single quote and typewriter apostrophe (U+0027). Never use single quotation marks in sentences like the previous three.
Here, we explain the must-know guidelines for proper quotation mark usage, including examples for each. Thus, to represent curly quotes in XML and SGML, it is safest to use the decimal numeric character references. “Smart quotes” features wrongly convert initial apostrophes (as in ’tis, ’em, ’til, and ’89) into opening single quotes. Performance by these “smart quotes” features was far from perfect overall (variance potential by e.g. subject matter, formatting/style convention, user typing habits). Before Unicode was widely accepted and supported, this meant representing the curved quotes in whatever 8-bit encoding the software and underlying operating system was using. In Finnish, the beginning of a reporting clause is marked only by the punctuation already existing in the sentence, or (if there was none) by adding a comma.
When to use quotation marks
In both major styles, regardless of placement, only one end mark (?, !, or .) can end a sentence. A few US professional societies whose professions frequently employ various non-word characters, such as chemistry and computer programming, use the British form in their style guides (see ACS Style Guide). They are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes, or indicated in speech with a tone change or by replacement with supposedly or so-called. This is because indirect speech can be a paraphrase; it is not a direct quote, and in the course of any composition, it is important to document when one is using a quotation versus when one is just giving content, which may be paraphrased, and which could be open to interpretation. Single quotes are more usual in the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa, though double quotes are also common there, especially in journalistic worksclarification needed. This rule is optional with one-word quotations.
PlayStation App
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.
During the Renaissance, quotations were distinguished by setting in a typeface contrasting with the main body text (often italic type vs roman). In the first centuries of typesetting, quotations were distinguished merely by indicating the speaker, and this can still be seen in some editions of the Christian Bible. (Despite the different code points, the curved and straight versions are sometimes considered multiple glyphs of the same character.) Question marks in a quotation within a quotation can get tricky. If a quotation functions as a subject or object in a sentence, it might not need a comma. Technically, the mark designating feet is a prime; the mark designating inches is a double prime.
American style
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.
Primary quotations are orthographically distinguished from secondary quotations that may be nested within a primary quotation. An exception may be made when writing fiction, where the first comma may be placed before the first closing quote. These two styles are most commonly referred to as “American” and “British”, or sometimes “typesetters’ quotation” and “logical quotation”.
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.
Quotation marks are also used to indicate the titles of creative works and highlight specific terms or phrases, often emphasizing tone. Quotation marks have many essential functions in grammar. While using numeric references can make a page more compatible with outdated browsers, using named references are safer for systems that handle multiple character encodings (i.e. RSS aggregators and search results). In addition, while the HTML 4, XHTML and XML specifications allow specifying numeric character references in either hexadecimal or decimal, SGML and older versions of HTML (and many old implementations) only support decimal references. If the encoding of the document supports direct representation of the characters, they can be used, but doing so can cause difficulties if the document needs to be edited by someone who is using an editor that cannot support the encoding.
In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, speech marks, quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name. When the material being quoted contains a quotation within a quotation (i.e., something in single quotation marks), use double quotation marks. In all major forms of English, question marks, exclamation marks, semicolons, and any other punctuation (with the possible exceptions of periods and commas, as explained in the sections below) are placed inside or outside the closing quotation mark depending on whether they are part of the quoted material. When a run-in quotation contains quotation marks within the quoted material itself, use single quotation marks in their place. Most large newspapers have kept these low-high quotation marks, „ and ”; otherwise, the alternative form with single or double English-style quotes is now often the only form seen in printed matter.
No comment