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4.6: Quotation marks

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    70185
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    Quotation marks (“ ”) set off a group of words from the rest of the text. Use quotation marks to indicate direct quotations of another person’s words or to indicate a title. Quotation marks always appear in pairs.

    There are three typical ways quotation marks are used. The first is pretty self-explanatory: you use quotation marks when you’re making a direct quote.

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    • He said “I’ll never forget you.” It was the best moment of my life.
    • Yogi Berra famously said, “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

    If you’re just writing an approximation of something a person said, you would not use quotation marks:

    • She told me about Pizza the three-toed sloth yesterday.
    • He said that he would be late today.

    The second is when you’re calling attention to a word. For example:

    • I can never say “Worcestershire” correctly.
    • How do you spell “definitely”?

    Note

    It is this course’s preference to use italics in these instances:

    I can never say Worcestershire correctly.

    How do you spell definitely?

    However, using quotes is also an accepted practice.

    The last use is scare quotes. This is the most misused type of quotation marks. People often think that quotation marks mean emphasis.

    • Buy some “fresh” chicken today!
    • We’ll give it our “best” effort.
    • Employees “must” wash their hands before returning to work.

    However, when used this way, the quotation marks insert a silent “so-called” into the sentence, which is often the opposite of the intended meaning.

    Where do Quotation Marks Go?

    Despite what you may see practiced—especially in advertising, on television, and even in business letters—the fact is that the period and comma go inside the quotation marks all of the time. Confusion arises because the British system is different, and the American system may automatically look wrong to you, but it is simply one of the frequently broken rules of written English in America: The period and comma always go inside the quotation marks.

    • Correct: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys.”
    • Incorrect: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys”.

    However, the semicolon, colon, dash, question mark, and exclamation point fall outside of the quotation marks (unless, of course, the quoted material has internal punctuation of its own).

    • This measurement is commonly known as “dip angle”; dip angle is the angle formed between a normal plane and a vertical.
    • Built only 50 years ago, Shakhtinsk—“minetown”—is already seedy.
    • When she was asked the question “Are rainbows possible in winter?” she answered by examining whether raindrops freeze at temperatures below 0 °C. (Quoted material has its own punctuation.)
    • Did he really say “Dogs are the devil’s henchmen”? (The quote is a statement, but the full sentence is a question.)

    Titles

    Use quotation marks around titles of short works of writing, such as essays, songs, poems, short stories, and chapters in books. Usually, titles of longer works, such as books, magazines, albums, newspapers, and novels, are italicized.

    “Annabelle Lee” is one of my favorite poems.

    The New York Times has been in publication since 1851.

    If a quote is longer than four typed lines, skip a line after the colon and indent the left margin of the quote five spaces. Because quotations longer than four typed lines use line spacing and indentation to indicate a quote, quotation marks are not necessary.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about how sad he was for his son when he learned that the men who killed Michael Brown would not face jail time:

    It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished. But you were young and still believed. You stayed up till 11 P.M. that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said, “I’ve got to go,” and you went into your room, and I heard you crying. I came in five minutes after, and I didn’t hug you, and I didn’t comfort you, because I thought it would be wrong to comfort you. I did not tell you that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay. (11)

    Long quotations, which are four typed lines or more, are called block quotations. Block quotations frequently appear in longer essays and research papers.

    Exercise

    1. In the Google advertisement Parisian Love, we see how Google facilitates a young couple’s love affair.
    2. In the video, Julia Roberts declared, I am Mother Nature. I don’t need people. People need me.
    3. After the play, Jerome said, “The critic called this play “unredeemable schlock.” I don’t know about that. I thought it was redeemable.”
    4. After winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, Mr. Hernandez said that “he would buy a house for his mother.”
    5. In class, we discussed David Brook’s column in “The New York Times” but we could not agree with his conclusions.

    Contributors and Attributions


    4.6: Quotation marks is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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