An indirect quote lets you capture or summarize what someone said or wrote without using their exact words. Quotation marks are a type of punctuation with several different functions. This convention was later standardized in RFC 3676, and was adopted subsequently by many email clients when automatically including quoted text from previous messages (in plain text mode). For example, many simple text editors only handle a few encodings or assume that the encoding of any file opened is a platform default, so the quote characters may appear as the generic replacement character � or “mojibake” (gibberish).
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.
More meanings of quotation mark
These same systems often drew the backtick (the free standing character U+0060 ` GRAVE ACCENT) as an ‘open quote’ glyph (usually a mirror image so it still sloped in the direction of a grave accent). The Unicode standard introduced a separate character U+2015 ― HORIZONTAL BAR to be used as a quotation dash. In addition to being standard for second level quotes, guillemet quotes are sometimes used as first level quotes in headings and titles, but almost never for ordinary text in paragraphs. Guillemet marks pointing inwards are used for highlights and in case a quotation occurs inside a 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.
Use a semicolon inside quotation marks when it’s part of the quoted material. When a colon is part of the quoted material, place it inside the quotation marks to indicate that what follows it elaborates on or continues the thought introduced before the colon. Colons are typically placed outside quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted material. Aside from quotes and speech, English also uses quotation marks for the titles of creative works. Indirect quotes restate or paraphrase those words or ideas and don’t require quotation marks.
Why Quotation Marks Are Important
(1) To identify previously spoken or written words. This includes individual words, phrases, or separate clauses. However, no capitalization is necessary if you’re not quoting a complete sentence. In that case, it begins with a lowercase letter, even if the original sentence begins with a capitalized letter.
- Scare quotes are used to show that the writer doubts the validity of a word.
- In fiction, they’re used for writing dialogue or whenever a character says something out loud.
- There is no space on the internal side of quote marks, with the exception of 1⁄4 firet (≈ 1⁄4 em) space between two quotation marks when there are no other characters between them (e.g. ,„ and ’”).
- Spanish uses angled quotation marks (comillas latinas or angulares), with no space between the quotation mark and the quoted material.
- The method for producing smart quotes may be based solely on the character preceding the mark.
- Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations.
- Using quotation marks to indicate height is informal yet widely accepted.
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.
- For example, the journal Language of the Linguistic Society of America requires that the closing quotation mark precede the period or comma unless that period or comma is “a necessary part of the quoted matter”.
- Question marks in a quotation within a quotation can get tricky.
- At that time typesetting did use curved quotation marks.citation needed The ASCII character set, which has been used on a wide variety of computers since the 1960s, contains the straight versions only (U+0027 ‘ APOSTROPHE and U+0022 ” QUOTATION MARK).
- In Bulgarian, Icelandic, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Russian, single quotation marks are not used.clarification needed
- In both major styles, regardless of placement, only one end mark (?, !, or .) can end a sentence.
- These same systems often drew the backtick (the free standing character U+0060 ` GRAVE ACCENT) as an ‘open quote’ glyph (usually a mirror image so it still sloped in the direction of a grave accent).
American style
There is no space on the internal side of quote marks, with the exception of 1⁄4 firet (≈ 1⁄4 em) space between two quotation marks when there are spinorhino casino no other characters between them (e.g. ,„ and ’”). Unlike English, French does not identify unquoted material within a quotation by using a second set of quotation marks. French uses angle quotation marks (guillemets, or duck-foot quotes), adding a ‘quarter-em space’a within the quotes. British publishing is regarded as more flexible about whether double or single quotation marks should be used. If another set of quotation marks is nested inside single quotation marks, double quotation marks are used again, and they continue to alternate as necessary (though this is rarely done).
How to Use Quotation Marks: Rules and Examples
The quotation can be introduced with a transitional phrase followed by a comma, helping separate the spoken words from the rest of the sentence. You can skip the comma before or after the quote for short quotes or phrases within a sentence if they flow naturally. Here, commas distinguish the spoken words from the rest of the sentence.
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Poland, adopted a variant with the convexity of the closing mark aimed rightward like the opening one, „…”. Some neighboring 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.
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.
They also require the proper context so the reader understands why the writer doubts or is qualifying the word’s usage. In fiction, they’re used for writing dialogue or whenever a character says something out loud. This is most common in nonfiction writing when a writer uses a phrase or sentence from a preexisting source, usually to support their thesis.
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.
