Quotation marks can be used when referring to a specific word or letter. The unpunctuated lead-in is most commonly used with run-in quotations, but it is also appropriate for introducing block quotations that flow directly from the introductory text. A very short quotation may also be introduced without punctuation. A period can be used to introduce a block quotation when the introductory text stands on its own as a complete sentence. It is also the mark most commonly used to introduce a block quotation. Longer quotations should be set off from the main text, and are referred to as block quotations.
Specific language features
Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively for quoting dialogues rather than for single statements, and is virtually always the one used for that purpose in works of fiction. In Polish printed books and publications, this dictionary-recommended style for guillemets (also known as »German quotes«) is used almost exclusively. Guillemet marks pointing outwards are used for definitions (mainly in scientific publications and dictionaries), as well as for enclosing spoken lines and indirect speech, especially in poetic texts. But the most frequent convention used in printed books for nested quotations is to style them in italics.
- Straight single and double quotation marks are used in most programming languages to delimit strings or literal characters, collectively known as string literals.
- If you’re quoting two or more paragraphs, place opening quotation marks at the beginning of each new paragraph.
- Since curved quotes are the typographically correct ones,citation needed word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users (at minimum as available characters).
- In character encoding terms, these characters are labeled unidirectional.
- When a quotation is followed by other writing on a line of text, a space follows the closing quotation mark unless it is immediately followed by other punctuation within the sentence, such as a colon or closing punctuation.
- The usage of a pair of marks, opening and closing, at the level of lower case letters was generalized.
- One can skirt these limitations, however, by using the HTML character codes or entities or the other key combinations in the following table.
The Chicago Manual of Style suggests 100 words or more as a general rule, but offers many factors other than length to be considered. How do you determine if your quotation is short (allowing it to be incorporated into the main text) or long (requiring a block quotation)? In contrast to the main text, a block quotation might also have a bigger right-hand margin, be in a smaller or otherwise different font, or have reduced line spacing. Style varies, but at a minimum a block quotation should have a bigger left-hand margin than the main text.
Quotes indicating verbal irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare quotes. If such a passage is further quoted in another publication, then all of their forms have to be shifted up by one level. Sometimes quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation. They were used to quote direct speech as early as the late sixteenth century, and this practice became more common over time.
Scare quotes generally appear as quotation marks around a single word or sometimes a phrase. Spanish uses angled quotation marks (comillas latinas or angulares), with no space between the quotation mark and the quoted material. In case of quoted material inside a quotation, rules and most noted style manuals prescribe the use of different kinds of quotation marks. North American printing usually puts full stops and commas (but not colons, semicolons, exclamation or question marks) inside the closing quotation mark, whether it is part of the original quoted material or not. Nevertheless, while other languages do not insert spaces between the quotation marks and the word(s) quoted, the French usage does insert them, even if they are narrow spaces.
Quotation marks in English
(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.
- The curved quotation marks (“66–99”) usage, “…”, was exported to some non-Latin scripts, notably where there was some English influence, for instance in Native American scripts and Indic scripts.
- Scare quotes in writing are the origin of the air quotes gesture in in-person speech.
- Since these continuation marks are obsolete in French, there is no support for automatic insertion of continuation guillemets in HTML or CSS, nor in word-processors.
- Likewise, the typographic opening single quotation mark is sometimes used to represent the ʻokina while either the typographic closing single quotation mark or the neutral single quotation mark may represent the prime symbol.
- In contrast to the main text, a block quotation might also have a bigger right-hand margin, be in a smaller or otherwise different font, or have reduced line spacing.
- With regard to quotation marks adjacent to periods and commas, there are two styles of punctuation in widespread use.
- These two styles are most commonly referred to as “American” and “British”, or sometimes “typesetters’ quotation” and “logical quotation”.
Quotation marks and adjacent punctuation
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 ’”). 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).
Both quotation marks and italics are used for the titles of works, but certain types of works use only quotes, and others use only italics. Use sic within quotations to indicate that any spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors, or unusual phrases are part of the original quoted material. Place a comma inside the quotation marks at the end of a quoted phrase. If you’re using the same word, sentence, or phrase as another author, put those words between quotation marks.
Primary quotations versus secondary quotations
For more on the proper use of multiple punctuation at the end of a sentence, see here. This is called nesting quotations. (1) Quotation marks to identify previously spoken or written words Some quoted passages are longer than others. But suppose you place the quotation mid-sentence, forming a syntactical part of the sentence.
With narration of direct speech, both styles retain punctuation inside the quotation marks, with a full stop changing into a comma if followed by attributive matter, also known as a speech tag or annunciatory clause. In the United States, the prevailing style is called American style, whereby commas and periods are almost always placed inside closing quotation marks. Periods and commas that are part of the person’s speech are permitted inside the quotation marks regardless of whether the material is fiction.
Primary quotations are orthographically distinguished from secondary quotations that may be nested within spinorhino casino a primary quotation. An exception may be made when writing fiction, where the first comma may be placed before the first closing quote. These two styles are most commonly referred to as “American” and “British”, or sometimes “typesetters’ quotation” and “logical quotation”.
Here, we explain the must-know guidelines for proper quotation mark usage, including examples for each. Thus, to represent curly quotes in XML and SGML, it is safest to use the decimal numeric character references. “Smart quotes” features wrongly convert initial apostrophes (as in ’tis, ’em, ’til, and ’89) into opening single quotes. Performance by these “smart quotes” features was far from perfect overall (variance potential by e.g. subject matter, formatting/style convention, user typing habits). Before Unicode was widely accepted and supported, this meant representing the curved quotes in whatever 8-bit encoding the software and underlying operating system was using. In Finnish, the beginning of a reporting clause is marked only by the punctuation already existing in the sentence, or (if there was none) by adding a comma.
“The best investments today”, according to Smith, “are commodities and emerging-market stocks”. “The best investments today,” according to Smith, “are commodities and emerging-market stocks.” Find the quotation you need on our sister site funnyQuotation.com. (2) Quotation marks to signify so-called or alleged (4) To show that a word refers to the word itself not the word’s meaning.
In France, by the end of the nineteenth century, the marks were modified to an angular shape. In most other languages, including English, the marginal marks dropped out of use in the last years of the eighteenth century. Quotation marks have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.
Nicknames and false titles
However, most computer text-editing programs provide a “smart quotes” feature to automatically convert straight quotation marks into bidirectional punctuation, though sometimes imperfectly (see § Smart quotes). Standard English computer keyboard layouts inherited the single and double straight quotation marks from the typewriter (the single quotation mark also doubling as an apostrophe), and they do not include individual keys for left-handed and right-handed typographic quotation marks. Straight single and double quotation marks are used in most programming languages to delimit strings or literal characters, collectively known as string literals. When a double quotation mark or a single quotation mark immediately follows the other, proper spacing for legibility may suggest that a thin space ( ) or larger non-breaking space ( ) be inserted. When a quotation is followed by other writing on a line of text, a space follows the closing quotation mark unless it is immediately followed by other punctuation within the sentence, such as a colon or closing punctuation.