Quotation Marks
If your teacher writes "QM," write the rule you violated. For problems of quoting literature, see QL (Part Five). For quotation marks and titles, see Titles (Part Four).
QM: quotation marks. 3. QQ: quotations within quotations. 4. Long quotations. 5. Words, letters, numbers, abbreviations. 6. QMT: typography. QMX: misuse.
1. QMD: dialogue. Use quotation marks to set off dialogue from narrative:
A voice greeted me. "Hello," I said, my heart pounding. "Is Alice home?"
Start a new paragraph with each new speaker. If one person speaks two or more paragraphs, begin each paragraph with new quotation marks, but use no closing quotation marks on any paragraph except the speaker's last:
"I had the highest grade in the class on my Science test," he said.
"My English teacher told me I'm a great writer. My Daddy bought me a new
sports car. It's a red Porsche. All my girl friends think it's cool. And did I tell
you about my new haircut?
"But enough about me. Let's talk about you for a while. You look
better than usual.
Did I tell you about my golf score?" For related rules see CWD (Part Five: Creative Writing).
2. QMP: punctuation marks with quotations. Write the rule you violated.
a. Place periods, commas, question marks, and exclamation points inside quotation marks:
WRONG: I said, "Well". "Well", I said. I asked, "Well"? RIGHT: I said, "Well." "Well," I said. I asked, "Well?" A question mark or an exclamation point can go inside or outside, depending on its use:
I asked, "Why?" Why do you say "like"? Why did you ask "What?" I cried, "Go!" Stop saying "like"! Stop asking "What"! b. Semicolons, colons and dashes go outside quotation marks:
I meant "No"; I did not mean "Yes."
c. Use only one end punctuation mark with quotation marks. The only exception is dashes.
WRONG: "How true!," he exclaimed.
RIGHT: "How true!" he exclaimed.
WRONG: The three diners had different reactions: "Ugh!," "Yeech!," "Yuck!"
RIGHT: The three diners had different reactions: "Ugh!" "Yeech!" "Yuck!"
RIGHT: All three remarks--"Ugh!" "Yeech!" "Yuck!"--indicated dislike of my cooking.
3. QQ: quotations within quotations. Use single marks for quotations within quotations:
The first question on the quiz was "Who wrote 'The Raven'?"
Do not use single quotation marks unless narrative is mixed with dialogue. Here is a passage from Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice:
"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you dance."
Only if you include said he in your quotation must you use single quotation marks:
He offers encouragement: "'Come, Darcy,' said he, 'I must have you dance'" (6).
Encouraging the reluctant Darcy, he says, "I must have you dance" (6).
In the rare instance of quotations within quotations within quotations, use double marks. Note where the question mark goes:
I had predicted, "I'll bet the teacher asks, 'Who wrote "The Raven"?'"
4. Long quotations. If a quotation of prose takes more than four lines, if a quotation of poetry takes more than three lines, or if you need to give a shorter quotation special emphasis, do not use quotation marks.
Indent the quotation one inch (not one-half inch) and double-space. Do not single-space. If dialogue or quotations occur within the indented passages, use regular quotation marks.
Indent any new paragraphs within an extracted quotation an additional three-tenths of an inch. See QL3 and QL4 for examples and more information.
5. Use italics or words, letters, and numbers when you refer to them as such. Italics or quotation marks are acceptable:
I can never pronounce twelfths. I can never pronounce "twelfths." The final e in make is silent. The final "e" in "make" is silent. Be consistent; use italics or quotation marks, but not both:
WRONG: I sometimes write incidence when I should write "incident."
Italics have one advantage. They look better than quotation marks with apostrophes, which are used to indicate plurals of words and letters:
UGLY: Dot your "i'"s and cross your "t'"s.
BETTER: Dot your i's and cross your t's.
Do not highlight letters and numbers when they are not referred to as such:
WRONG: I had a B- on the quiz. I had a "B-" on the quiz.
RIGHT: I had a B- on the quiz.
6. QMT: typography. Leave no blank space between quotation marks and a quoted word:
WRONG: " Good afternoon. "
RIGHT: "Good afternoon."
Do not forget to close quotations:
WRONG: She said, "Good morning and asked me to take a seat.
Never leave the opening quotation marks stranded at the right margin, with the quoted passage on the following line; or the closing marks stranded at the left margin.
QMX: misuse. Do not use quotation marks, double or single, to indicate that you are speaking ironically. Rephrase to make your meaning clear:
WRONG: The poem is about the "unsinkable" Titanic.
WRONG: The poem is about the 'unsinkable' Titanic.
RIGHT: The poem is about the supposedly unsinkable Titanic.
If you are worried that readers will think an embarrassing expression is your own, rephrase your sentence to allow quotation marks. Use only double quotation marks:
WRONG: The Twist was "the in thing."
WRONG: The Twist was 'the in thing.'
RIGHT: The Twist was what teenagers in the 1960s called "the in thing."