Quotation Marks

an icon showing opening and closing quotation marksThere are three typical ways quotation marks are used. The first is pretty self-explanatory: you use quotation marks when you’re directly quoting.

  • 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 quotation marks is also an accepted practice. Check with your instructor.

The last use is scare quotes. This is the most misused type of quotation mark. 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 almost all of the time. Confusion arises because the British system is different.

  • Standardized: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys.”
  • Non-standardized: 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 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 quotation is a statement, but the full sentence is a question.)

Practice

Has the following passage been punctuated correctly? Type any standardizations in the text frame below:

Gabrielly and Marcelo both knew a lot of “fun facts” that they liked to share with each other. Yesterday Gabrielly said to Marcelo, “Did you know that wild turkeys can run up to twenty-five miles per hour?”

“Well, an emu can run twice that speed,” Marcelo responded.

“Did you know that there’s a dinosaur-themed park in Poland called JuraPark Bałtów”? Gabrielly asked.

Marcelo then told her about “Rusik, the first Russian police sniffer cat, who helped search for illegal cargoes of fish and caviar”.