FURTHER READING
"Quotation marks"
Quotation marks surround words words that the narrator or author of a piece isn't saying. Wait, what? An author's role is to communicate directly to the reader in a piece of writing, even if this is indirectly done with a character narrator. However, sometimes an author is sharing with a reader what characters say to one another (dialogue) or what others than the author have said about a topic (direct quotation).
How does one deal with other punctuation marks and quotation marks? Unless the quotation is inside an encloser, all punctuation goes inside the quotation marks (Doug said, "I think I'll give you a raise."). Look closely at the ."). of the last sentence: the period for the quoted green sentence is inside the quotation mark, but as the sentence is within a set of parentheses, the parenthesis and the period ending the full bold sentence are outside the quotation mark.
- For narrative dialogue, quotation marks surround the full sentence spoken by the character so we know just what their words are: Jim said, "I'm not like you, and I'll never be like you!" Notice that the quoted text is the direct object of said. To keep speakers of dialogue clear, an author must add paragraph breaks every time a new character speaks dialogue. To learn more about the grammar of dialogue, click here.
- For edifying texts, quotation marks surround words that come from another text and are often followed by a proper source citation: Perry emphasizes his fear when he says to Dick, "Nuns are a bad luck bunch" (Capote 56). If a line of quoted material exceeds three lines, it is set off into its own paragraph with indents on either side (this is called a block quote). To learn more about using quotes in edifying texts, click here.
- Quotation marks are also used to indicate the titles of short works that come from a larger whole, including titles of poems, television episodes, songs, short stories, articles, book chapters, and paintings. Click here to learn more about indicating titles.
- Quotation marks are also used to for emphasis of word in handwriting. This emphases could be tonal (I didn't "say" that Bill kissed Susan) or could be on a single word used as a literal word (What did you think "surrender" meant, you spineless worm?). Not that I said handwriting: in typography, writers use italics for emphases instead of quotation marks.
How does one deal with other punctuation marks and quotation marks? Unless the quotation is inside an encloser, all punctuation goes inside the quotation marks (Doug said, "I think I'll give you a raise."). Look closely at the ."). of the last sentence: the period for the quoted green sentence is inside the quotation mark, but as the sentence is within a set of parentheses, the parenthesis and the period ending the full bold sentence are outside the quotation mark.